Jack Whyte - The Eagles' Brood

"Nah! It's not bad." Pellus hawked to clear his throat, then spat noisily. "Hundred paces, no more. After that, it's deep forest. Big trees, no undergrowth, easy going. But we have to get rid of your friends before we leave...and we have to be quiet about it. How many are there all together?"

"Twenty-one."

"Then that's almost ten to one. We'll take them tonight, shall we? After dark? Then we can head out through the woods, lead our horses until we can see well enough to ride."

It was my turn now to return his look of irony. "And what about the corpses? You think the people behind us will simply pass by twenty-one bodies without wondering who killed them, and why? Or without wondering why there's signs of two hundred horsemen leaving the road and heading off through the bushes? And have you an answer for me to the question of what we do with our wagons? Or should we simply abandon them and the fifteen wounded men in them?"

He blinked at me, his expression indicating clearly that he had given no thought to this last point. "Shit," he said, at last. 'That's it, then. We're stuck here. We can't get off this road, so we're dead men."

Something in his words triggered a thought, and I felt my heart begin to pound. "No." I held up my hand to silence him. The front rank of our main body had now almost reached us. "No, there may be a way to get us off the road legitimately and leave the wagons safely. Let me think for a moment." We drew aside again as our men began to pass us, riding in formation again, now that there was no one to see them. I watched them as a stranger might, my concentration focused on the thoughts teeming in my mind. Finally I had it. I remembered Derek's scornful remark to Donuil about being a tame Saxon. "Yes!"

Pellus watched me closely, waiting. I grasped him by the arm. "Do you have a man who has not been seen by any of these people?" He nodded. "Good. We're going to need him. Now you and I will find Lucanus, and Lucanus will write you a letter. He will also refuse to abandon his charges. I'll leave you with him to await the letter, and I'll return to the point and start getting my people settled for the night. In the meantime, as quickly as possible, as soon as he has the letter, send your man looking for me as though he were a stranger, newly arrived. It's important that he pretends not to recognize me. My name is Ambrose Ambrosianus; be sure he knows that. The 'dispatch' he carries will be from Vortigern, who is having troubles with his tame Saxons and has summoned me to return to the northeast immediately. I will leave our wagons—along with a fistful of gold for his trouble—with Derek of Ravenglass and his people. They'll see that Lucanus and his charges come to no harm, and because they're all badly wounded, Lucanus will be able to escort them through and beyond Lot's assembly point, and from there home. Your part, as soon as you've seen your 'messenger' safely on his way to me, will be to start bleeding your men away into the woods, here, in small groups, so they'll be safely ahead of my party before we set out. They should be able to move unchallenged in the darkness, and to make good time once they are out of the forest. There's a full moon tonight. We will reassemble tomorrow morning at the site of this morning's fight—we should be well behind the enemy by then—and from there we'll strike out south-east as a unit again, and loop around this meeting place and south of Glevum until we hit the high road again to Aquae Sulis and Camulod. Let's find Lucanus."

The following morning found us safely reassembled, one hundred and twenty strong, riding again beneath the banners of Camulod. My hastily improvised plan had worked in every detail, and Lucanus, with a small group of volunteer wounded, had been left in comparative safety under the protection of Derek of Ravenglass who, in return for a heavy bag of the gold coins we had never been required to spend, had promised me to see my wounded companions safely through Lot's gathering and put them on their way to a place where they could be tended. Lucanus, for his part, knew the cover story I had invented on meeting Derek. He could claim safely to have been on his way to Lot, accompanying me, as an envoy from Vortigern. His men had been wounded in a fight with others we had met along the way. It would be up to me to find a way of salving my own conscience for deserting my friend in such a manner, although my duty clearly lay in reaching Camulod as quickly as possible.

It was a fine, clear day, betraying no hint of the alien, wintry weather of the previous weeks. The sun shone brightly and warmly, and we drove ourselves hard, angling south-eastward and keeping our scouts ranging far ahead of us, on the alert for more enemy formations. The relative inactivity of the preceding weeks had worked both for us and against us. Our horses were well rested and healthy, but our own bodies had grown slack, so that more than a few men reeled in the saddle with unaccustomed aches and pains by the time we swung south and west to bypass the area where Lot's army was converging.

I missed Lucanus on that ride and so, it was plain, did Donuil. He rode in silence, his face grim as he struggled to keep his seat on the big animal that surged beneath him. Donuil would never be a confident horseman. Our order of march was simple and progressive: walk, trot, canter, gallop, canter, trot, walk; one mile of each, in three parallel, close-formation columns of six abreast, permitting our horses to conserve their energy while covering distance effectively and quickly.

By mid-morning of the second day of hard, relentless riding, we were on our home ground, tired but jubilant to recognize our own Mendip Hills in the distance. We had seen few signs of the enemy since the previous forenoon—a few distant formations, too far away to concern us, and all of those now heading north. We would be in time, it seemed, to warn our people. I was tempted to relax our pace, but resisted and instead urged my people on to greater speed. The miles fell away beneath our steady rhythm, and as the afternoon shadows began to lengthen, the Mendips rose around us and we swung directly towards Camulod.

At one point, crossing a high, expansive area of open grassland that rose to a narrow pass between two low hills, I led my column forward, listening to the muffled thunder of our drumming hoofbeats as the others fell into place behind me. The blood was singing in my veins as we climbed at a steady canter, and I was reviewing the eve/its of the past few weeks, the threat of Lot and his assembling army temporarily forgotten now that we were so close to home. I had met and befriended Germanus the Bishop, Vortigern the King, and Jacob, the Chief of Lindum, and I had found a brother in, Ambrose—not merely a brother in spirit, but in fact; a sibling! I had also learned the tenor of the discussions at the great debate and could report that Alaric's immortal soul was safe and we were in no danger of being excommunicate. And now I was returning home to my Cassandra, who was Donuil's sister Deirdre, and to our child. Filled with the joy of anticipation by this last thought, I sank my spurs into my horse's flanks and surged ahead of my men as we approached the crest. Beyond it, the valley that lay ahead of me was tiny, covered in short, green turf and rising steeply to another, more pronounced crest. Hearing the riders behind me speed up in response to my surge, I put my heels to my horse again and leaned forward, bracing myself in my stirrups, and whispering into his ear for more speed, so that he bounded to the top of the crest and charged over it into the slight depression that lay beyond, where he screamed in terror and reared violently, throwing me from his back as he tried, vainly, to avoid the grisly pile of human bodies that lay concealed by the last few feet of the crest. And even as I fell heavily, I heard him crash onto his side, and the sound of arrows hissing through the air around me.