M. K. Hume [King Arthur Trilogy 04] The Last Dragon (23 page)

‘You little bugger!’ the outlaw swore in the common tongue as he grimaced with pain after his heavy fall. As if space had suddenly slowed to a crawl, Arthur had sufficient time to register that the man was bleeding sluggishly from somewhere in the fleshy muscles of his left thigh, which made him slow and awkward. The wound inflicted by Ednyfed Crookback on his killer was the only advantage Arthur held, for his adversary was over six feet tall, burly and thick bodied. Seeing the axe thrust securely into the man’s sword belt, Arthur knew he was a Saxon.

Thanking the gods and the warning voice in his head, Arthur leapt to his feet with a boy’s flexibility and tried to dodge around the bear-like figure blocking his path. He was too close to use his sling as a weapon, and if he came within reach of those huge, grasping arms he knew he would be finished. Like Rab, he would be left to lie in the snow, staring at the grey, darkening sky until the crows stole his eyeballs as a tasty morsel. Shuddering at the grotesque mental image, he crouched as close to the ground as he could and sought an opportunity to flee.

‘My friends will be back for me shortly, you little Cornovii shit. Then you’ll discover why this land will soon be ours, and how we’ll drive you into the sea.’

The Saxon’s eyes moved constantly in the manner of any seasoned warrior as he searched for external threats. He already knew this child was fast on his feet and surprisingly dexterous, for he had been concealed in the copse when Arthur had first approached, and had monitored his subsequent movements closely. Initially he had been deceived by the newcomer’s height, for the lad already stood as tall as a short-statured man, and his furs gave the illusion that he was wider than he actually was. By the time he realised that his adversary was a stripling, the boy had slid down the hill and was out of reach. The Saxon had cursed Loki, the trickster god, for making a fool of him, and then decided to wait in a tree along the route he guessed the boy would follow on his return journey.

In face to face combat, Arthur knew his only advantage was his speed, but he also understood that the Saxon could easily bar his escape route. Effectively, the thick copse of trees that he had seen as an ally was now a barrier along the path to safety, one that provided no room for him to manoeuvre. The Saxon had time on his side, for the longer they tarried the closer they came to the moment his able-bodied friends would return for him.

Arthur decided to take a fearsome risk to break the impasse. He turned and ran back towards the farm, fumbling for his sling as he retreated. Once the weapon was in his hand and a stone was fixed in its pouch, a matter of seconds, Arthur whirled round and let the stone fly, despite being far too close to the target for the shot to be aimed effectively.

With a bellow of pain, the Saxon fell backward to the ground, clutching one wrist. He had raised his hand instinctively to protect his face when he saw the sling, so the stone had smashed his right wrist before being deflected into his left eye, momentarily impairing his sight. Cursing and raging, partially blinded and with his face streaked with a mixture of tears and blood, he struggled to get to his feet. Not giving himself a chance to lose his nerve, Arthur ran like a hare. He attempted to leap over the hunched figure, certain he could get a good start on the lumbering adult, but this was a trained warrior and not so easily defeated.

Confident that a mere child was no adversary, the Saxon hadn’t bothered to draw his sword or his axe. Now his razor-sharp reflexes brought his uninjured hand up in an attempt to catch the leaping boy. He managed to snatch at Arthur’s ankle and brought the lad tumbling to the ground, although he was unable to keep a solid grip on Arthur’s flailing legs.

As Arthur struggled to his feet, shaking his head where he had struck a tree trunk during his tumble, the Saxon drew his knife and slashed viciously at his exposed belly, intent on gutting him like a fish. The blade caught Arthur as he leapt backward, slicing shallowly across his chest from one side to the other. The cut immediately released an oozing of blood that looked far worse than it was.

Fortunately for Arthur, his furs suffered the worst damage, but the terrified kitten, rudely awakened by the fall and the ensuing struggle, was digging its small claws into his flesh. Dimly, Arthur was aware of this, but he felt no pain. He had heard that warriors could suffer hideous injuries in the heat of battle yet fight on because they did not feel the agony associated with killing wounds. He hadn’t believed such tales, but a part of his brain now registered that the stories he had heard might have been true.

Above the screaming in his head, the boy felt a red mist settle over him that was part anger and part fear. He threw himself bodily at the Saxon and clung to him like a limpet, his legs wrapped around the man’s waist, seeing Rab’s ice-sprinkled hair, Cathella’s staring eyes and the agonised expression of Ednyfed Crookback superimposed over his enemy’s snarling, bearded face. This animal was one of the men who had killed a harmless farmer attempting to protect his family as best he could. With a scream that matched the noises in his head, Arthur brought his own knife down again and again, striking blindly at any part of the furred hide in front of him he could reach until the writhing figure stopped pummelling his back with clenched fists.

When the man beneath him ceased to struggle, Arthur’s brain slowly cleared and he realised that he was alive through sheer, blind luck. Fortuna had spun her wheel and made her decision against all reason. His suicidal charge had only been successful because the Saxon had dropped his knife in the abruptness of it, and then been slowed by his thigh wound until Arthur’s blade, descending in yet another wild slash, had embedded itself in his eye.

Run, Arthur, run! They’re coming for you!

As Arthur straddled the dead man, he heard the mental words of warning as if they had been spoken aloud. He struggled to his feet, his body one long ache of agony as pain finally cut through the heat of combat. Time was short, so he steeled himself to pull his knife from the Saxon’s face. He knew he would always remember that sound, wet and sucking, as the weapon was withdrawn from the curdled eye and the brain behind it.

Bending to cut the snowshoes from the Saxon’s belt, Arthur spent several minutes strapping the basketwork soles over his own boots: any time lost now would be regained once he started to run. Then, with every muscle protesting and his body demanding rest, he set off, skimming over the deep snow in a brisk, sliding gait that was faster than he could ever have managed without his purloined snowshoes.

Careless now of hidden traps in the snow under his feet, Arthur made good speed across the wide expanse leading towards Arden Forest and safety. Then, just when he thought he would reach the trees unobserved, he heard a muffled shout off to his right and a quick, snatched glance took in five warriors on the crest of the far ridge where he had seen those first footprints earlier in the day. One of the men stood and pointed in his direction. The group turned and began to plough through the snow with the obvious intention of cutting him off.

Although the band of warriors was still some distance behind Arthur, the men were moving fast, for they were as accomplished with snowshoes as he was. However, even as he mustered his failing strength to increase his speed, Arthur calculated that he would still reach the margins of the forest long before they did. But could he maintain the distance between them? The Saxons held a decided advantage, for Arthur’s snowshoes betrayed his path at every step. They would be able to follow him with ease, even in the thickest parts of the forest.

‘First things first!’ Arthur murmured softly, remembering one of Bedwyr’s favourite phrases. Reaching Arden Forest was the first goal, and he would worry about everything else once he was in the shelter of the trees.

‘Help me, Artor! Help me, Mithras! Help me, Mother!’

Arthur called on every god and dead relative he could think of, but silently now, not daring to waste a single breath as he fled as fast as his immature legs would permit. He knew he was leaving a clear trail, but they could see him anyway and were moving swiftly in their effort to intercept him, so he concentrated all his energies on reaching the denser trees wherein lay his best chance of survival.

His light weight and his knowledge of the terrain worked in his favour, and he reached the sanctuary of Arden over a hundred spear lengths ahead of the Saxons. ‘It’s all downhill now,’ his mind told him as if he were already free of his pursuers. Rather than waste time unfastening the straps, he sliced away the snowshoes from his boots. ‘It’s time to head for water.’

Arden was a lacework of streams and rivulets, wild, tangled and immeasurably old. One major river cut through the southern margins and led to Glevum, many leagues away. In addition, the forest was bound by two major Roman roads, Fosse Way to the south-east, running through Venonae and Ratae, and Watling Street to the north-east. The Crookback farm was situated before the intersection of these two roads at Venonae, and as Arthur moved over the forest floor he pictured the landscape in his head as if it were an unrolled scroll containing one of Myrddion Merlinus’s charts. The outlaws had targeted this section of land,
this
farm, because it was close to the intersection of these two strategically important roads. Now, Arthur was even more certain that he had to reach Bedwyr alive, and as quickly as possible. Many lives would depend on this information reaching the kings of the west.

The forest held no terrors for Arthur, but the loss of blood from the long, shallow wound on his chest was steadily weakening him, for his rapidly beating heart was preventing any reduction of the blood flow. The urgency of his mission must take precedence over his own life, so if fate decreed that he should perish from his struggle to reach the palisades and Bedwyr, then so be it. As long as he arrived and passed on what he had seen before he died. The Saxons must not catch him, nor must he die of exhaustion, blood loss or exposure while on the run in Arden Forest.

‘First things first,’ he muttered again, and stopped to drink beside a streamlet so small that it was little more than a trickle down the side of a tree-choked incline. Then, moving the near frozen kitten to his outer fur, he dragged off his shirt, ripped off both sleeves and tied them together, before tearing the body of the shirt into two and making a large pad from one of the halves.

Conscious of the sounds of pursuit through the floor of the forest, Arthur hurried to bind the pad over the wound and across his chest with the knotted sleeves. Finally, he formed a sling out of the remainder of the material and tied it round his neck to carry the kitten. The knife could still be valuable, especially for climbing, so he thrust the weapon into his belt and set off again. Only cunning, understanding of the terrain and his ebbing strength could save him now.

Time passed slowly, but at length the short winter afternoon began to draw in and Arthur climbed painfully up the trunk of a large oak to obtain a final set of bearings in what was left of the fading light.

From his perch high in the tree, he caught an occasional glimpse of the outlaws following his trail and his heart sank at their nearness. Another tree was nearby and Arthur realised that he could reach one of its large, intertwining branches with relative ease. Wincing at the strain on the muscles crossing his chest, he forced himself to move from branch to branch, following a crazy route above the forest floor where, despite his wounds, he could move much faster.

Eventually, the encroaching darkness began to present new dangers for Arthur. He was marooned in the tree tops high above the forest floor, and he knew that any fall would be fatal. He had little room for error as he limped his way from tree to tree, and when he almost slipped after losing his footing in the deteriorating light he decided to huddle in one of the forked branches of a huge oak and rest during the hours of darkness. When he was sure he was secure, he made himself comfortable.

In his short, privileged life, Arthur had never known such a miserable night. Afraid to sleep in case he tumbled from his perch, he allowed the complaining kitten to suck snow from his hand for sustenance, and had reason to be grateful to the little creature whose constant demands kept him alert. During the madness of the day he had lacked any time to eat his casually packed lunch, even if his appetite could have survived finding Rab and his family, but now he chewed pieces of cold meat to soften them and fed the resultant mess to the irritable little cat. Fortunately, it had been started on solid food by its mother, although it wasn’t quite weaned, and it attacked the chewed meat with inexpert enthusiasm.

Exhausted, in pain, and with eyes almost closing of their own accord, Arthur clung to his precarious perch for the long hours between dusk and dawn. In that dreadful time, he had the opportunity to think about his life. His mother would weep if he died, but she had other children to console her, no matter how much she cared for him. Bedwyr would also be very sad. Arthur knew his foster-father genuinely cared for him, but he also understood that Bedwyr saw the face of his dead friend in his son. Bedwyr had loved the High King more than any other person in his life, and Artor had represented those values that Bedwyr believed were worth dying for. No one else would really care, Arthur finally decided. And that was as it should be.

‘We are all expendable,’ he murmured with adult understanding, not realising how remarkable his thought processes were for such a young lad. What we are in childhood is potential. What we might have become is what should be mourned if we die young. What would Rab have become if he had been permitted to live? A master smith? He loved the idea of making objects with iron and fire. In killing the boy, the Saxons had killed the potential craftsman.

If I live, I will try to achieve my potential, Arthur vowed silently. The man who made the Dragon Knife fulfilled his, and created something that has lasted long beyond the fragile limits of a man’s lifespan. During that long, dark night, Arthur became determined to make his life worthwhile, so he vowed to drain Lorcan and Germanus dry of every piece of knowledge they possessed. He owed that much to himself, and he owed it to Bedwyr and Elayne. He owed it to Artor, the man who had provided the seed that had given him life.