Warriors of Camlann Read online

  Gawain staggered backwards, fascinated and appalled by the scene. He allowed the sword to fall from his hand. He patted the war hound who nuzzled him contentedly with his gory muzzle; the hound’s breath smelled of fresh blood, his strong teeth were still stained with it. This all felt so wrong. Gawain knew he had killed before. He knew what to do and thought he knew what to expect and yet he had never felt like this before, he was sure of it. He had never suffered with his victims before, never imagined what it was to feel the full force of his own blade. For a vertiginous moment he had even glimpsed his own face, contorted with a terrible, grim joy as he hacked with all his strength at another man’s flesh. He sat down shakily on the damp grass. The bump on the head had affected more than his memory.

  Bedewyr was looking at him, his own sword drawn but unbloodied. Bedewyr’s face was pale and he spoke in little more than a shocked whisper.

  ‘I have never seen anything like that – you are so fast …’ The whole fight had been over in a matter of heartbeats. ‘Where did you learn to fight like that?’

  Gawain found his voice. ‘I don’t remember, but I fear that I have had much practice.’ He wanted to vomit but knew that he would not, he wanted to cry but could not. He knew that his body had done all this before and was responding with the blunted reactions born of experience. His mind rebelled. He had done a terrible thing. He had killed five men. He had felt them die. This had not happened before. He wiped his hands on the grass and cleaned Bedewyr’s sword – automatic gestures. He handed the sword back to Bedewyr.

  ‘I’m sorry – the blade is slightly nicked and a little blunted. It cut through bone without shattering – it is a good blade. Please take it – I don’t think it is safe for me to have such a weapon.’

  Bedewyr flinched at the word ‘bone’ and did not disagree. He was more afraid of Gawain than he had been before. His eyes had a wariness about them that had not been there scant minutes earlier. To Gawain’s eyes Bedewyr looked too young to have seen butchery like this before.

  ‘I would have helped, you know,’ Bedewyr began. ‘But it was over too fast – and the dog …’ Bedewyr shuddered.

  ‘Do you not fight with war dogs?’

  Bedewyr nodded, ‘Yes, but I have never seen any hound half this size or half this savage, I—’

  ‘There is no need to fear him. I can’t remember his name but he will not harm you if you do not harm me.’ Gawain tried to make his voice as gentle and unthreatening as possible. ‘Do you have some more of that water?’

  He rinsed his mouth and spat on the ground.

  ‘What do you do with the dead here?’

  ‘We do not bury our enemies.’

  Gawain nodded. ‘Do you wish to claim their skulls?’ he asked matter of factly and was surprised by the horrified reaction on Bedewyr’s face.

  Gawain shrugged. ‘Some people find it potent to keep the heads of their enemies. If you are not one of them, that is fine by me. Now, where were you taking me? I think we should go quickly before there are more of these – what do you call these people?’

  ‘They are Aenglisc. They are trying to take over our land. I was asked to take you to the War Duke Arturus and the Druid.’ Bedewyr watched Gawain closely for his reaction to either of the two most important names he knew, but he was disappointed. Gawain merely swung himself easily into the Roman-style saddle and nodded.

  ‘Lead the way, Bedewyr, and don’t worry – I am not a mad man and I do not think you a coward!’

  Bedewyr blushed at the accuracy with which Gawain had guessed his thoughts, and spurred his horse on. He knew that Gawain fought less like a man than a demon. Bedewyr grew cold. Could he be a wizard after all?

  Chapter Five

  ‘Bryn?’

  As soon as the door of her prison slammed shut, Ursula ran to the crumpled figure of the boy.

  ‘Bryn? Answer me, Bryn. Are you all right?’

  The black shadow, that was all she could see of Bryn in the sudden darkness, struggled to a sitting position.

  ‘I’ve lost a tooth,’ he said thickly. ‘But I think it was one I was meant to lose.’ Ursula restrained herself from hugging Dan’s squire. Although he was little more than eight years old, among his own people he counted as a man and Ursula had learned to respect male Combrogi pride. She contented herself with a manly clasp of the boy’s thin shoulder.

  ‘How do you come to be here? I thought you were going to stay with Kai and King Macsen.’

  ‘I was going to, but Braveheart bolted after Dan. I tried to catch him but by the time I’d grabbed his collar we’d got caught up in the Veil. I could see Dan’s back and then, when we stepped through …’

  Ursula found she was holding her breath. Bryn had seen his own father die and much of his tribe slaughtered, she did not want him to have seen what had happened to Dan, his Lord, his protector, his hero.

  ‘I saw Dan and the blood and everything. I was going to go to him but I heard voices. I couldn’t hear what they said and I was afraid they were Ravens or whoever had hurt the Bear Sark.’ Ursula heard the slight hesitation in his voice, the trembling that told her that he wept bitter tears of shame that he had not immediately run to his Lord’s side.

  ‘I hid – I was a coward – and they put Dan on a horse and took him away. Braveheart stayed with him. He was braver than I was. There were two of them but they separated. I was going to track the one who took Dan’s body. I started to, but then this big foreigner – not a Raven, something else – caught me and knocked me over, and when I came round I was outside this hut,’ he used a derisory word for ‘hut’ that meant something closer to ‘hovel’. ‘And then they threw me in here.’

  Ursula sought his shoulder again, felt the stiffness in it, the effort he was making not to sob out loud.

  ‘Bryn, I think Dan was past your help. You did the right thing. No one would hurt Braveheart – he’s a valuable animal—’

  ‘He won’t fight for foreigners, he’s Combrogi!’ Bryn flashed back, outraged that she could even suggest such disloyalty from his father’s former war dog. Once more Ursula had said the wrong thing. It was a gift she’d got. She let her hand fall heavily from his shoulder.

  She sensed rather than saw the slight relaxation in his posture.

  ‘You think Dan is dead don’t you?’ Bryn’s voice was low now, low and tightly controlled, bound with pain and the memory of pain. Ursula nodded and, realising she could not be seen in the darkness, answered him in the same tight, quiet voice.

  ‘Yes, there was a lot of blood and—’

  ‘He’s not dead. I’d know it – I’m his squire, I pledged my life to him – I’d know it!’

  Ursula didn’t argue. What would be the point? Instead, she took the knife, and feeling her way, silently undid his bonds.

  ‘We’ve got to get out of here,’ she said in her most matter of fact voice. ‘There’s another prisoner here, a Raven – the other lot who brought you here are Aenglisc or something. We have to take the Raven with us.’

  Bryn appeared to be wiping his face. There was a pause, then he said, ‘I think they’re preparing some sort of ceremony – they are taking things to the grove of trees near this place. I don’t know, but by the way they looked at me – I don’t think I’ll see the spring.’

  Bryn had something of Kai’s black humour. Ursula earnestly wished that Bryn had stayed with Kai, in Macsen’s land. She trusted Kai – he would have cared for him and ensured that he stood as good a chance as any of reaching adulthood. Now, the odds on him living that long were severely lengthened. It was up to her to keep both of them alive.

  ‘Hey, Larcius! My friend here thinks we might be used as part of a ceremony. What do you think – do these Aenglisc go in for that kind of thing?’ She spoke in good soldier’s Latin; it was the only kind she knew. Larcius’s version was different but still comprehensible. Anyway his groan told her as much as his words.

  ‘Sometimes they sacrifice victims for auguries – most of them are pagans.’ H
e spat his contempt. That surprised Ursula. All the Ravens she had met before were pagans too. She wondered what he meant, but had more pressing things on her mind.

  ‘We’ll have to be ready to make a run for it when they take us outside. Larcius, you’re going to have to stand up – I’ll support you all I can but we’ll only have one chance!’

  The man grunted what might have been an affirmative. She switched languages – Bryn’s Latin was rudimentary. ‘Bryn, you’ll know something of battle wounds – see if you can do anything with Larcius. Be gentle, we don’t know that he’s a bad Raven – call him a Roman if it helps, you know, like Rufinus who helped King Macsen.’

  Ursula returned to the corpses by the wall. She had not checked them for weapons. She steeled herself against the gruesomeness of her task. Their captors had been careless – she took that as a good omen – they’d left two other belt knives – short but sharp and serviceable.

  She would have liked to have a plan but, ignorant of where they were held, the lie of the land and the number of their enemies, they would have to improvise. But before that they would have to wait. She had always hated waiting. Her muscles knotted and it was by force of will alone that she stayed calm and outwardly controlled. Larcius and Bryn didn’t have a hope in hell without her.

  Bryn had bound Larcius’s wound so tightly that the man had cursed, which was unfortunate as Bryn was at least familiar with all the Latin expletives. Only Ursula’s swift intervention prevented Bryn from punching his patient. When she had calmed them both down she questioned Larcius closely. With what she could glean, she managed to piece together a picture of their situation.

  They were in a coastal settlement that had recently been established by the Saxons or the Aenglisc as they called themselves. The Combrogi were fighting to keep the Aenglisc from gaining more territory. Oddly, Larcius seemed to regard himself as Combrogi, though he couldn’t understand Bryn at all. Ursula concluded that the word must mean something different to Larcius, as to Ursula the word ‘Combrogi’ described the Celtic tribes she had fought with in Macsen’s world, her own adopted people. It was clear that some considerable time had elapsed since Macsen’s reign. Exactly how long it was impossible for her to ascertain, but it was time enough for the distinction between the Combrogi and their old enemies to have blurred. Anyway, it wasn’t relevant to their escape – she would worry about the wider world when she was no longer imprisoned and when Bryn was safe.

  It was hard to gauge time in the dark but it was a long time before the Aenglisc finally came for them. Ursula had wrapped rope around her hands to simulate the bonds she had cut through. She had done the same for Bryn. Each of them was armed with a belt knife, a weapon she would not have chosen to pit against a sword but which was considerably better than nothing.

  They allowed themselves to be manhandled into the bright sunlight of late afternoon. Ursula’s eyes streamed in the sudden brightness. Bryn looked terrible. His face was pale and strained beneath its liberal coating of blood and grime. Larcius was the biggest shock of all. He was dressed well, in fine wool, badly stained with blood from his wound. He was not tall, several inches short of her own height, but it was his face which so startled her – she had never seen a man so handsome.

  His eyes were the most piercing blue she had ever seen, his hair dark and crisply curled, worn short in Roman fashion. He favoured her with a smile of knowing complicity. Something strange happened to her stomach.

  ‘Lady, you are beautiful as well as courageous—’

  Any further compliments were silenced by a hard, back-handed swipe across his mouth from the burliest of their captors. That focused both their minds. They were surrounded by Aenglisc and were being marched in the direction of a small wooded glade, as Bryn had guessed. The men around them were armed with spears, but to Ursula’s experienced eyes they seemed old weapons, badly maintained, and the men who wielded them did so without conviction. They had a chance here; she could feel it. She did not take it yet. She did not know where they could run to and they needed horses if they were to get Larcius to safety. He could not straighten up and he stumbled ahead of her on unsteady legs. The men stopped a few metres away from the centre of the glade by a large tree. It might have been an oak – Ursula was not too good at such identifications. Dan’s sword, ‘Bright Killer’, barred the way, thrust almost up to the hilt in the soft earth. It glinted with a cold, silver light. Ursula blinked back tears. This was not the moment to grieve for Dan.

  ‘That’s Dan’s sword stuck in that rock!’ hissed Bryn.

  What was Bryn talking about? There was no rock, though Ursula could see that magic distorted the air around it like a summer heat haze. Then an elaborately dressed woman walked into view, her long dark hair a silky curtain almost covering the heavily scarred portion of her face. Rhonwen! Ursula struggled to retain her composure; their chances of survival had plummeted again.

  Rhonwen was Macsen’s sister, a princess, and a powerful sorceress who had run away through the Veil when Ursula had proved the more powerful. Ursula’s head had always ached when Rhonwen was near, as if the magic warned her of Rhonwen’s presence. This time she had received no such warning and she could think of no reason why Rhonwen should be here. It was Macsen’s sister who had called Ursula from her own time, had helped her, been helped by her and still, Ursula knew, hated her. She was no friend of Ursula’s, and Rhonwen, unlike Ursula, clearly retained her magic in this world. Though Ursula could no longer wield it she could feel it crackle like static against her skin. With an almost physical ache of longing she wanted to be able to command it as she once had. But she could not. She would not let that loss hurt her. She could not afford to blunt her wits with a useless emotion like regret. She flexed her fingers surreptitiously. If she did not have magic she would have to rely on brute force, cold steel and the implacable firmness of her will.

  Chapter Six

  Rhonwen smiled. It was not a pleasant smile. Her emerald eyes met Ursula’s briefly. Rhonwen’s look was cold and did not acknowledge the history between them. The one-time princess raised her face to the heavens and began to chant. Ursula had heard her incantations before, but the sound still raised the hairs on her neck and arms. Rhonwen looked more unearthly than ever. Her face was unchanged; though Ursula was surprised that Rhonwen had not attempted to mask the pink rawness of her burnt face as she once had. To Ursula’s clear perceptions one side of her face was beautiful, flawless, the other a puckered contusion of scars. But the air was so thick with magic it was hard for her to know what others saw. Rhonwen had always dressed to impress in Celtic splendour but what impressed these Aenglisc was strange indeed. Rhonwen was wearing a slightly stained silk robe of deep green under a fur mantle. The fur mantle was little more than the skin of a wolf hung with the bleached white of animal skulls. Around her neck she wore a series of bone amulets and two or three small leather pouches decorated with feathers. They contrasted oddly with the sophistication of the gown. Five or six sizeable objects also hung from the leather belt at her waist, most did not bear close scrutiny but Ursula recognised a beautifully mounted crystal ball in an elaborate gold setting and a polished boar’s tooth also on a gold chain. She looked wilder, more savage than she had before.