Dreaming the Serpent Spear (33 page)

Time opened its own weave and he could see which were destined to die now and which later, and when. Thorn was there. He saw her cross the river into Briga’s care and knew the time and the place and the manner of it. His own detachment surprised him.

On Mona’s shore, he set off down the line, walking from one bright light to the next, delivering the images as he was shown them: “You are the souls of all the slain grandmothers, come to take revenge on their killers. You are children, the walking dead. You are eyeless women, dressed in black, mad with grief and terror, and you cannot be killed.”

None of this was new; he had spoken of the legionaries’ fears in the great-house as he moulded the dreaming through the spring, but now he matched the dreamers to the dreaming, spinning threads for each one, connecting them to the legionaries as fishers to their fish. For a few were lesser evils more readily created: “Make the sounds of crow and eagle; mix them together if you can so that you are many of each, attacking in flocks. Throw sand in the air; make it form a snake. Send the grass to writhe amongst them. You are serpents, attacking by the hundreds.”

He reached the end. Thorn was there, alive and ready to meet him, tracing his lips with her finger, holding his palm to her cheek. He said, “You are the gulls, feeding on men’s eyes.” She clasped her hand in his and he felt the steadiness, as of long-rooted oak, and the un-fear of death. She sighed a little in concentration and he felt the pull of the sea and the sharp, clear sky and flocks upon flocks of white sea birds rising like the centre of a storm, growing to a tumulus of thunder.

Stooping, he kissed her brow. “Thank you. I love you. Don’t ever forget it.”

She pressed a smile into his neck, and he left her and a hole tore open in his heart.

The gaps in his web were all closed. There was nothing left to be said. Bellos turned slowly, spreading his feet wide on the shingle. A turning wind battered at his face, carrying the stinging spray from the wavetops. He could hear the lip and kiss of paddles in the water and the harsh breathing of many men.

Close. So very close.

Bellos reached for Graine with his mind, and found her, and basked in the brief joy-grief that flooded them both when she was touched so. Underneath that was a current of doubt, as strong in her as it was in him; they alone had seen the weavings in the fire. They alone knew the extent to which the preparation on the shore was not as she had seen it. Even if it had been, they had no idea at all if it would work.

Opening his mind to the god, Bellos turned the beacon of his attention on the dreamers around him, and the net they had woven that hung, waiting, above the incoming men.

A man’s voice shouted in Latin, like and not-like Valerius. A flat-bottomed boat grounded on pebbles.

Bellos felt a pulse of undiluted terror. From the centre of it, praying, he said,
“Now!
”

C
AMULODUNUM WAS BURNING.

The storm that had drenched the first moments of attack had passed westward. A freshening breeze had dried the timber of the merchants’ houses and the wattle of the craftworkers’ huts enough to feed the infant flames that lapped at the edges of the city, spewing smoke to the sky.

Valerius was in the south, leading the warriors who had chosen to train with him and fight with him. At their head, he faced a line of Roman veterans who had formed inside the brick and mortar barrier, all iron armour and leather with new-painted shields and quiet, waiting faces. He smelled the smoke growing in the west long before he could see it. The scent was welcome, but oddly out of place, as if the morning fires of a roundhouse had become bound up in all the iron-blood and sweat and opening bowels.

There were a great many opening bowels and most of them among the youths Valerius was shepherding into the attack lines. He had not yet found a way adequately to warn them how much the reality of war against the legions
differed from the songs; that without the rites of the long-nights and tests of the spear-trials they had no basis for self-belief; that self-belief was what made the difference in the momentary crush and crisis of combat and the sum of those brutal moments was what won the day or lost it; that, even in the days before Rome’s invasion, no-one had ever ridden or run into battle without gut-wrenching fear and that it never left, only lessened a little so that one could think clearly enough to fight.

Flames flickered on the edge of his vision. Turning away, he hailed a skinny, hook-nosed youth who had shown some initiative in training and sent him forward at the head of a half-troop — he still thought in Roman cavalry terms; he should cure himself of that — to swing round and come in at the far end of the veterans’ line.

The youth was half his age and one of the many Caradocs. The ceremony to find new names for them and the several dozen Breacas had taken a night and half of the following day, but had been successful in the end.

Thus, Knife with the hooked nose ran forward at the head of his dozen warriors and formed them into an arc with surprising efficiency. A girl newly named Conna held the centre, with Longinus to help her, and Valerius himself was shadowed closely by a youth called Snail on a skewbald mare who held Valerius’ standard and was, in fact, far more able than his choice of name might have suggested.

“Snail! Signal both wings to drive inward!”

Valerius shouted it over the din. The standard waved in a clockwise loop and, blessedly, Knife and Conna were both looking and both remembered what to do. Their two half-troops came together, tightly, with shields overlapping at
the edges and swords held between. At Longinus’ command, spears were thrown from behind in a ragged volley.

None struck living flesh. Amongst the enemy, someone bellowed an order from near Valerius’ end of the line and the veterans swung their shields back down, beginning the moves that would transform their line into a square as if they had been doing it all their lives, which they had, except for the past ten years.

They were smooth enough but not as fast as they could have been. Shields angled aside and back into place, rustily. Valerius saw the barest of openings between one man and the next and hurled the Crow-horse into it. Screaming, he slashed downwards with his blade, and felt the impact of iron on iron that moved the blood through his veins in a way nothing else could do.

Alive with the beginnings of battle fever, he shouted the names of both his gods and saw the youths who had followed him through the breach catch the feeling and grow with it, cutting harder and faster.

Even so, they were still young and untested. For every veteran who fell, a handful of warriors died, screaming. The smell of void faeces and spilled guts entirely swamped the smells of sweat and blood and smoke. To Valerius’ left, the flames took better hold of the city and reached higher. He remembered lying on the hillside watching the veterans cut a fire break within the inner barrier, but could not map in his mind exactly where it was.

The fighting was too fierce to think that far beyond it and expect to live. Numbers told over experience and the veterans’ square fell in on itself, broken by the Crow-horse and the mounted warriors who came after. Another command was
barked down the line and former legionaries broke ranks and ran to their right, setting their backs to a masonry wall.

Wheeling left, Valerius sought out the man who was shouting the orders. The youth, Snail, was still in his shadow, still holding aloft the banner of the bull on Mona’s grey that had been Valerius’ through his time with the Roman cavalry. The boy held it with an awkward pride, as if he had not yet resolved the contradictions within it or within himself.

He was not alone; even as recently as the night before battle, the Boudica’s war host had been quite clearly split in their feelings for Valerius and his leadership of them. The vast majority of the youths still hated the Boudica’s brother for what he had been. A smaller number had damped their fireside songs and learned from him soberly and when the time came to apportion the war host it had been quite clear who would follow him willingly and who would not.

Snail had been one of those most clearly willing, and he had been more accurate than most with his spears. That was no guarantee that he could do in war what he had done in practice, but it was worth trying.

The fighting eased, as it always did; neither veterans nor youths had the stamina for long engagements. Two lines faced each other with the dead between, two sets of strangers locked in their own bubble of life and death while fire and sword and spear wreaked havoc in the other parts of the city.

In the quiet, Valerius pinched running sweat from his nose and said, “Snail, the one with the ram’s head in white on his shield. I want you to kill him with your spear.”

The lad was solemn and thought too much. His wheat-brown hair was thin and the aftermath of the rain still stuck
to it so that he seemed all head and vast, shocked eyes. He closed them and the dreamer in Valerius saw the prayer that came and went, silently. The man in him saw the moments of self-examination and uncertainty, and mourned them for being out of place in the midst of battle. Snail said, “You do it. You’ll kill him. I might miss.”

“You won’t.” Valerius reached over. “Give me the standard so you can aim cleanly. Do it quickly, before he sees you.”

“And before I have time to think too deeply and spoil my aim?” Snail smiled, sadly. Saying nothing, Valerius twitched the Crow-horse away to give the lad a clear line. From his left, he heard Longinus murmur orders and saw that Conna’s half-troop was making a diversion. Three spears sprang from their ranks, aiming for the left hand end of the veterans’ line. The ex-centurion with the mark of his former unit painted fresh on his shield turned his head to shout a new order.

Snail’s spear arced high, densely grey against the paler grey of the sky. For the briefest of moments, it hung in the air, seeming true. Then the spinning flight faltered and it fell to the right and struck, not the man, but his shield. What it lacked in accuracy, it made up for in strength. Iron bit deep into cowhide and laminated birchwood. The haft wavered with the force of the throw and then sagged, dragging the whole shield with it.

A speared shield is worse than useless, a drag on a tired arm and a slow, unwieldy thing to lift and turn; any man who has survived more than one battle knows that. Before the haft had stilled, the centurion had thrown his scutum down and dashed forward to the clutter of dead men and discarded weapons ahead of him. A fraction later, without
any command, four of his men followed, two to each side, as protection.
“Go!
”

Longinus and Valerius shouted it as one. Long days of training bore fruit. The line of youths on foot dashed forward, keeping to their shield pairs, the one on the left protecting the one on the right so that the latter could strike with impunity.

Valerius was pushing the Crow-horse forward when he remembered Snail. He risked a glance back. The youth was an ugly, shocked green and showed no sign of moving. The too-vast eyes fixed on Valerius, asking questions he could not read.

“Come on!” Against all the rules of battle, Valerius turned his back on the enemy. Longinus was in the front of the action, closing with the centurion. Valerius could feel him as he used to feel Corvus; at once a safeness in the unsafe chaos of combat while yet a hidden flank, vulnerable to unseen attacks, to be protected at all costs.

“Snail! Get back or come forward. Don’t take root!” He had shouted himself hoarse for half a month saying exactly the same: that the key to survival in battle was to keep moving. Breaca had taught him before either of them had ever been in battle, and then Corvus and Civilis and every other commander of any worth:
Watch the enemy; know who’s behind and ahead and at the sides; never stand still unless you have a wall at your back and others hold shields at either hand.

He might as well have been speaking Thracian. Snail was locked in a world apart. Staring blindly ahead, the youth said, “Their shields. You told us to go for their shields if we weren’t sure of a kill. I did that.”

“I did. You remembered. Well done.” The Crow-horse had begun to fight the bit, jogging and spinning; it, too, knew what was not safe in battle.

In the fighting lines, the centurion had picked up a new shield. The four men who supported him had turned back to back so that each was protected by the others. Like that, they sidled crabwise back to their lines. The remainder of the veterans advanced to meet them, fighting a way forward. Screams rose high and harsh, telling their own tales; three of the youths in the centre were wounded, possibly dying, and Longinus needed help.

Urgently, Valerius said, “Snail, choose. I can’t do it for you. Go back if you need to; there’s no dishonour in it. You’re no good to us with a sword in your throat.”

“Breaca’s dead.”

“What?
” Valerius spun, scanning the west whence the smoke came.

A hand grabbed his wrist. Small fingers clawed at the skin, bird-like, dragging him back. Weeping, the boy said, “Conna … I’m sorry. Her new name was Conna … The centurion killed her. It’s my fault.”

Valerius prised the fingers loose from his arm. Conna. He tried to write the name on his mind, where he would not forget it afterwards.

He said, “It is no-one’s fault. I told you before, there’s no blame in battle.”
Don’t seek blame when you fight. Not before or after, especially not in the heat of battle. You do your best. If friends and lovers die, there is nothing you can do about it but make sure you live to mourn them.

He had said that, too, too many times to count. The youths of the war host who followed him had listened,
grimly silent each time, and had believed they understood. He had known as he was saying it that the breath was wasted; everyone found blame for themselves in their first battle. Hardness came later, when the numbers of the dead were so great they became impossible to count.

Unexpectedly, Valerius found it mattered to him that the shocked, shaking boy should never grow to the point where it was impossible to count his own dead.