Jack Whyte - The Eagles' Brood

I found him in his rooms, leaning against the whitewashed wall, putting an edge on a dagger with a small stone by the light of a couple of oil lamps.

"Good morning, Uther. All ready? What's up?"

"Good morning, Cousin." He grinned at me and nodded towards his bunk. Curious, I stepped to his bed and looked down at the device that lay there on top of the blanket.

"What is it?"

"Pick it up, then you tell me what it is."

I looked at it more closely before touching it: a weapon of some kind. A short, thick handle, covered in leather with a strong-looking leather loop at one end. The other end was sheathed in iron and attached to a short length of heavy chain links and on the other end of the chain, a ball about as big as a clenched fist.

"Is that iron?"

"Pick it up."

I did, and the ball, which was iron, remained on the bed as the chain extended with a series of clinks. I pulled it towards me and the ball fell from the bed, hitting the floor with a solid thud. The overall length of the thing was slightly shorter than my arm. I hoisted the ball clear of the floor. It was heavy.

"Very well, Uther. What is it?"

"Oh, come on, Merlyn! How many times have I had to listen to the tale of how you discovered the use of the saddle and stirrups? Can't you imagine what that thing would do to a man on foot if you swung it round your head?"

I hefted it tentatively, and suddenly I had no trouble in seeing what it was. "It would impress him."

"It would indeed—helmet, skull and all."

"Where did you get the idea?"

"You remember Vegetius Sulla's whistling stone? Partly from that. Partly from Grandfather Varrus's old story of you and the club. It's been lying around in my head for a long time now. I decided to have one made last time I was home. It worked, but the chain was too long, so was the handle, so we cut the length of the handle and reduced the chain to fourteen links, and there you are. I had one made for each of us. Yours is black, mine is red, see?" He bent and scooped another one from the floor by his feet. "Wrap the loop around your wrist and you can't lose it, even if you let go the handle."

"Very impressive! But why did you make me come all the way here to get it? Couldn't you have brought it to me?"

"Are you mad, man? Those things are heavy! I would not even try to lug two of them all the way to the stables! I'd look like Vulcan himself, dragging those things across the courtyard."

I laughed in spite of myself and hoisted the ball up, catching it in my left hand. It was heavy. "Come on," I said, "We'd better be moving; Thank you for this. I promise not to hit you with mine if you don't hit me with yours."

"Done! Now let's get out of here. We have about two hours of darkness left."

By the time the first pale hints of dawn began to appear in the sky, we were far to the north-east and making good time, each of us leading an extra horse. We had ridden in silence, our ears straining to pick up alien sounds in the darkness around us, for it was in both our minds that Lot's bowmen with their poisoned arrows could be anywhere, but we met no one and heard nothing to alarm us, and soon the darkness had leached away sufficiently for us to discern the swelling bulk of the Mendip Hills on our right. We rode on into one of those magical mornings whose beauty remains in the mind long after the day it gives birth to has been forgotten. The entire landscape was veiled in a grey, low-lying mist that swirled around our horses' hooves, and every leaf, every blade of grass, hung heavy with dew, so that as the warmth of the sun dispersed the mist it seemed that we rode through a land encrusted with glittering, multi-coloured jewels. Single trees stood out from their neighbours as though burnished in pale greenish gold, and the world was filled with the singing of uncountable birds.

We were riding side by side, our knees almost touching, when we breasted a low rise and saw the strange markings on the valley floor in front of us. For my part, although I saw the thing in front of us immediately, I was slow in recognizing it. Not so Uther, who drew in his breath with an abrupt, hissing sound.

"You were right, Cay. They're on the move."

It was the trail left in long, wet grass by a large party of men who had crossed our path very recently. Their passage had flattened a broad swath of grass, dislodging the dew, so that the rays of the morning sun showed their tracks as a broad highway of darkened grass, black-green against the sea of sparkling dewdrops to either side.

"Where did they come from, Uther? Which way?"

"From the east, heading west. You can see that from the way the light hits the flattened grass. They must have been riding north, like us, hugging the flank of the hills, then swung left to get to the hills on the other side."

I glanced along the broad path stretching to our left. "You think they might be your poisonous bowmen?"

"Not a question of might be.. .I'd wager on it. Lucky we weren't here ten minutes ago."

"You think they passed that recently?"

"Not much more than that. The birds are singing, so they're not close by, but the dew only fell in the last hour or so arid they went through after that."

"So what do we do now?"

"Exactly what we are doing, Cousin, but faster. There's nothing we can do about these people. We are only two against God knows how many of them. Let's head on, collect our own people, get back to Camulod as quickly as we can, and hope for the opportunity to provide a very nasty surprise for our visitors."

He kicked his horse forward and I followed him across the pathway of Lot's assassins, breaking into a canter as we traversed the open meadow between us and the unbroken line of trees ahead. As we reached the forest's edge, we both turned to look behind us at the unmistakable path our own horses had created in crossing the grass. It was now broad daylight and the sun was visible. Uther kneed his horse around towards the trees. "An hour at the most and the tracks will be gone. Let's just hope none of them head back this way too soon."

"Why should they? They're heading west and they have a long way to go."

"So do we, Cousin, and this forest doesn't look hospitable. Let's go."

Uther was right. Far from being hospitable, the stretch of forest we now faced was almost impenetrable, and there were times when we had to dismount and lead our horses through narrow gaps between thickets of ferocious undergrowth that simply refused to yield a passage. We struggled for well over an hour before the growth began to thin, but it seemed we had successfully negotiated the worst part of our journey, and we were able to mount again and ride through the remainder of the forest.

Finally, when the sun was almost directly overhead, we came into a meadowed clearing dominated by one massive old oak tree that stood on the bank of a clear, fast-flowing brook, and by tacit consent we dismounted and unsaddled our horses. Sometime later, the comfort of our mounts attended to, we sat on the bank of the stream, chewing on some of the cold venison and fresh bread we had brought with us from Ludo's kitchen.

"How far do we have to go, do you think?" I asked.

Uther shrugged and bent over to scoop up some water from the stream. "Should be there by nightfall, if we can make better time for the rest of the day." He drew himself erect again, wiping drops of water from his chin. "You know, Cousin, I never have remembered to congratulate you on your new rank.. .Supreme Commander of Camulod."

I was instantly on edge and distinctly uncomfortable, although not from his tone. I glanced at him quickly, but there was nothing to see in his eyes. His face was almost expressionless, with merely the hint of an ironic smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. I bent to the water and drank, too, more to conceal my sudden insecurity than anything else, then straightened up and waited, but he said nothing more.