Jack Whyte - The Saxon Shore

"Come together! Dress your lines. On me!" I had been leaning forward as I rode, one hand downstretched to grasp the handle of my iron flail, where it hung from my saddle bow. Now I unhooked it, feeling the dangling weight of the heavy ball on its iron chain. I sank my spurs deep and swung the thing aloft and around, feeling the pull of it in my arm and shoulder muscles as my horse lengthened his stride, gaining full momentum.

And then we were among them, falling upon their crowded press like a crushing mass of stone, our mighty horses trampling and battering their way forward and through them as our weapons rose and fell, swung from above and dealing death and crippling wounds to all who barred their passage. On the instant, it seemed the air was filled with noise of a different kind. Exultant battle cries gave way immediately to piercing screams of terror, and I saw faces raised to us in direst awe, screaming mouths widened in panic and superstitious disbelief. Mere moments we were among them, then we were through and swinging our horses wide and to the left, regrouping to narrow arrowhead formation as we rode, me at the point, tightening the circle, charging back again into their midst, scattering them like wind-blown leaves before us. I struck far fewer blows the second time, for there were none who sought to withstand me or argue passage. The gates loomed before me and I swung my mount hard left again, galloping flat out, then left again, where we regrouped to a double line of four, the rear filling the gaps left in the front, and back to the slaughter, save that slaughter fled us, in a rout, streaming to both sides of our charge, leaving the field scattered with abandoned weapons and the corpses from our first and second passes. I raised my arm and slackened my reins, allowing my horse to slow, and the gates swung wide and Athol's Scots emerged, howling with glee, to pursue their shattered foes.

I looked about me. All present. "Is anyone hurt?" I shouted, ignoring the rabble of vengeful Scots pursuers who streamed by us. Miraculously, it seemed, no one had taken so much as a scratch. I turned my horse around, placing my back towards the open gates, and watched the slaughter being performed on the edges of the forest where some of Athol's blood-hungry warriors had caught up with the straggling remnants of the fleeing enemy. Dedalus moved into my line of vision, bringing his horse up to stand alongside mine so that only I would hear what he had to say.

"Well, that's about as heavy a draw on Fortune's bounties as any of us can hope to effect for a long time. They thought we were devils, straight from Hades. I don't think I saw one thrust aimed at any of us. They folded and ran at the mere sight of us."

"Aye. Total surprise, allied with terror. We'll never have a success like that again, for next time, no matter when it comes, they'll be expecting us and they'll fight us." I turned in my saddle to address the others, who were sitting patiently, awaiting my word. "My thanks to all of you, my friends. It has been short work, but effective. I doubt if they'll stop running before their legs give out. But I find myself wondering who they were. As you all know, there would be little point in taking to the forest in pursuit; they're being pursued thoroughly enough, and once we rode off the traffic-beaten paths, we would be at their mercy. I don't know how you feel about that, but I think I prefer matters the way they are." That won me a smattering of grins and chuckles, and I held up my hand for silence, aware that a number of Athol's people were standing around us, gazing up at us where we towered above them. "I doubt we'll see more trouble today, but it would be folly to assume all danger past, so we will remain mounted and ready, here, where we are. I go now to find the king, to discover his intentions. I'll not be long. Donuil, come with me."

I swung Germanicus around and rode through the gateway, only to find Athol, Liam, Connor and several others on their way to find us, their jubilation evident even from afar in their bearing and their gait.

"By all the spirits," Athol said to me, gripping my stirrup leather and gazing up into my face. "I have never seen, nor will I see again, the like of that attack of yours."

"You saw it?" My surprise made me forget the formalities of addressing a king.

"Saw it? Aye, I saw it. I was up yonder, on the tower to the east."

I glanced in the direction he indicated and saw the square-framed tower, built of logs, the top of which was jammed with waving, cheering Scots. "A good vantage point!" I shouted.

"Aye, for watching, though, not for being involved. Come you, to the Hall. Your men will not have eaten, and there's bread, and ale, and meat left over from last night. Bring all of them and join us there."

"But sir! King Athol, is it wise to leave the gates unguarded?"

He laughed aloud, a deep-bellied shout of a laugh. "Unguarded? When more than nine tenths of my own men have not yet wet their blades? Come, bring your people."

XVII

That early-morning meal, turned into a day-long celebration that escalated every time another contingent of warriors returned in jubilant triumph from the chase through the forest. It had become clear, almost from the first moments of the attack, that the invaders were the people I had come to think of as the Wild Ones, the anarchistic renegades in whose territories we had first been blown ashore. It was equally clear, however, that their attack could not have been occasioned by our trespass on their lands, for had they known of us, they would have been aware of, and prepared for, our horses.

Whatever the reasons for their presence in Athol's territories, they had been destroyed by the sudden apparition of our cavalry, utterly demoralized by our swift and savage onslaught, and their lack of any form of discipline had doomed them. Once broken in their initial attack and frightened into flight, they had continued running, leaderless and without plan of any kind, ruthlessly hounded to the death by their intended victims.

Estimates of their original strength varied from one hundred and fifty to three hundred men. My own guess was that there had been two hundred or so before the gates when we arrived, but I had been too preoccupied in closing with them to assess their numbers consciously. Some people, most of them observers from the walls, argued that as many as two hundred others had remained in the fringes of the forest, holding back from the attack on the gates, awaiting its success before committing themselves. I found that hard to credit, simply because it suggested a discipline that had otherwise been proved lacking. I felt confident that my own reckoning was close enough to the truth. Reports of the slaughter in the forest, however, became confusing. If the stories we heard were all to be believed, close to five hundred raiders had been hunted down and killed among the rocks and trees. It seemed to me there was much exaggeration in the celebrations taking place. No matter, I thought. The victory was real.

The celebrations were truncated, late in the afternoon, by the arrival of two unexpected guests, Rud, whose disappearance had triggered the entire affair, and Fingael, the most truculent of Athol's sons, who returned without the mountain goat he had been sent to kill. They arrived slightly more than two hours apart.

Rud's unexpected reappearance added, initially, to the celebrations, which had become almost riotous by the time he arrived. He had been found in the deep woods, tied and stifled, abandoned there to be collected later and hauled into slavery, and subsequently forgotten in the flight of his captors. He would have died there, hidden away from the main paths, save for the call of nature that fortuitously took one of his neighbours in search of privacy right where Rud lay.