Reign of Iron (8 page)

“And they never discipline their children,” one thin-lipped, effusive gossip enthusiast told her.

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Spring managed to say as the woman paused for breath,

“Oh no, you have to bollock children regularly and beat them every now and then or they become selfish little shits and grow up into arrogant arseholes. That’s what’s happened to the Suby. They’re huge, never hung over and they take violent offence at the smallest thing. They’re
dreadful
.”

Spring also learnt from the loquacious woman that Senlack hadn’t killed his queen, who’d been a beautiful and stylish young woman. Brostona had done for her, as well as her own husband, then insisted that Senlack marry her. Senlack had just gone with it. He was that sort of guy. He was also mute. Spring actually found that titbit interesting. She’d put his quietness down to Brostona being overbearing, but, no, Senlack had never spoken. It was generally assumed that he was so lazy he simply couldn’t be bothered. Spring asked a few people how such a lackadaisical man had managed to become king. He just had, they told her.

Spring was half listening to yet another explanation of Ootipeat or Tengoterry history with personal side stories and wishing that the entirety of both tribes were mutes, when she heard distant shouts and screams.

“Shhhh!” she said to the bore. He looked offended but paused his droning.

“Quiet!” she said to the others.

“You be quiet,” said Chamanca, but she did shut up and listen for a while, then said, “What is it?”

“The Germans are under attack, from the east,” said Spring.

“Nonsense. I cannot hear … oh … actually…”

“Unchain us,” Atlas said to the leader of the guards, a small man in new-looking leathers with black, neatly combed hair and a patch of square moustache trimmed to sit under his nose like a tar spill from his nostrils.

“No. Maybe,” said the guard leader, looking about as if he’d just been told that there was a semi-concealed bear somewhere in the square. “Wait until I have assessed the threat. Follow me!” he cried to the other guards and ran off in the direction of the fighting. The others followed.

The noise of the battle approached rapidly, growing louder. It was a strange sort of battle sound. Usually you heard shouting, the clanging of iron on iron, the thumping of iron on wood and some screaming. This one was almost all screaming. There was a sound of metal on metal, but it didn’t sound like swords striking other swords or shields, more like cartloads of iron tools being pulled at speed across rough ground. The strangest thing about the noise was that Spring was sure that she’d heard it before … What was it? It was frustrating that they couldn’t see past the high tents that surrounded them.

Chamanca and Atlas strained at the chains, to no avail. They looked about for someone to help, but everyone had either fled or run to join the fighting.

“There’s something wrong with this attack,” said Chamanca.

“Indeed,” said Atlas. “It’s coming far too quickly and there’s too much screaming. And what, by Sobek, is that other noise? It sounds like Tadman running in giant’s armour when he fought Dug.”

“Yes. That’s it!” said Spring, the relief of remembering massively outweighed by what it might mean. “But more than one of him – many more.”

Atlas nodded.

Thinking that an army of armoured Tadmans might at any moment burst into the clearing made Spring feel sick and light-headed. It was becoming increasingly important that they get free of these chains. She looked for something that Atlas or Chamanca might have missed, but saw nothing.

A German tribesman sprinted into the square and carried on through, throwing his sword aside without checking his stride. Chamanca called to him but he didn’t respond. More German soldiers ran headlong into the clearing and out the other side, then more and more, until dozens were streaming through. Atlas managed to grab a passing woman.

“What’s happening?”

Her eyes were huge, the pupils flying around and bouncing off the sides. “Let me go, let me go!”

Atlas slapped her. “What is happening?”

“Devils! Gods! I saw Makka himself! Killing everyone! Everyone! Please, please let me go!”

“You will undo our chains.”

“I will, I will, I promise, the moment you let me go.”

Atlas let her go. She ran. Atlas shook his head, then put the chain over his shoulder and heaved like the hero from a bard’s tale. The muscles in his arms pulsed, his jerkin stretched across his huge back, his tartan trousers strained to contain his bulging thighs. But the chain held.

Many of the Germans streaming through the clearing now were bloodied. Some stumbled and regained their footing, some fell and stayed down. The screaming came ever closer. Something caught Spring’s eye. It was a person, flying through the air over the tents from the west. He landed with a cracking thud. Two more, a woman and a child, followed in similar trajectories. The woman landed hard, lifted her head and stared at Spring as if she were Bel himself, then collapsed.

“What
is
it? What’s coming?” someone said and Spring realised it had been her. Her voice had been strangely squeaky. She was terrified, she realised, properly afraid with a chance of shitting herself. She’d charged at Dumnonians and been charged at by Murkans in her time and it had been scary, but nothing compared to this. Not knowing what was coming but knowing it was something awful was much more frightening. So much for proving herself to Chamanca by her deeds. She tried to breathe calmly. She wanted to cry.

Chamanca and Atlas continued to work at the chains. Walfdan stood between Spring and the approaching menace. The screams and metallic clangs grew ever louder. More Germans flew screaming up into the air, some astonishingly high. Whatever it was would be in the clearing at any moment.

A horse galloped into the square, its rider’s black curly hair bouncing like an inflated bladder on the end of a stick – King Senlack. He leapt off and slapped his horse on the rump. It sped away. The king of the Ootipeats unsheathed his sword and charged their platform. Spring held up her hands, ready to defend herself as best she could.

Senlack chopped through the rope holding up the leather awning. One corner fell and the king ran to another.

“Crowd in and lie down!” shouted Walfdan. “He means to hide us!”

They threw themselves into a pile and pulled the canopy down onto themselves as Senlack cut it free. Spring’s head ended up on Chamanca’s bare midriff, her cheek pressed against the cool, firm skin. She felt a hand grip her hair and thought the Iberian was going to pull her off, but the hand gripped her in tighter, holding her still.

Spring lay in the dark and listened. The stampede in the square grew louder and the screaming intensified. They heard pleas for mercy, thumps, whacks, cracks that could have been bones snapping and squelching rips that could have been flesh tearing, all overlaid by the clanking of iron. The noise crescendoed. It sounded like the war of the gods had started in the square, apart from one odd noise. Was that
giggling
she could hear? She strained her ears, but something landed on their hiding place and Walfdan made an oofing sound.

Spring expected a giant iron-clad hand to rip away their covering any moment. Something crashed down on her own leg and she gasped. Chamanca gripped her hair harder and lifted a thigh against her mouth to silence her. More objects thumped down onto their covering. One landed on Chamanca but she didn’t flinch. Spring held her breath and pressed her cheek into the Iberian’s stomach, trying to squeeze out the terror, waited to be pierced by a sword, or crushed …

The noises of the killing abated, then became muffled. The killers were gone from the square. The groans of the dying remained. Spring heard one of her fellow hiders crawling out from under the tarpaulin. Chamanca dropped her leg and released her grip, but Spring stayed put. She was in no hurry to see what was out there. She heard chains jangling, and felt hers slip away from her anklet.

The tarpaulin was pulled back and there stood Senlack.

By the time Spring was on her feet, Atlas and Chamanca were already among the dead, hunting for weapons. The dead … there were hundreds of them, butchered. The lumps that had fallen on their hiding place were limbs, ripped torsos and heads. Blood pooled in shining red puddles, unable to sink into the already blood-saturated ground. All of the bodies were Germans. Whatever had killed them in the clearing – given the numbers it must have been an army, not a single beast – had done for hundreds of them without loss.

Spring thought she’d better find something to fight with herself but felt a hand on her shoulder – the mute king Senlack. He shook his woolly head, gestured for her to follow him, then pointed at the others.

“Atlas, Chamanca, Walfdan – he wants us to follow,” she said.

Atlas and Chamanca shrugged at each other and nodded. They were the finest Warriors that Spring had seen, with the exception of Dug and Lowa, of course, but Spring thought they looked happy for an excuse not to follow whatever murderous force was sweeping through the German camp, and she didn’t blame them.

“You thinking what I’m thinking?” Chamanca said to Atlas.

“Felix’s legion?”

“Without a doubt. I want to see them. I want to kill them.”

“Not here. Come on.”

Senlack led them to an opulently decorated tent, where they found Atlas’ axe, Chamanca’s ball-mace and blade and Spring’s bow, quiver and hammer.

Happier now that they were reunited with their weapons, they followed Senlack north, towards the Renos river. Throughout the camp, the carnage was extraordinary. At times the ground was so thick with bodies that they had to step on them. There were survivors, too. People emerged from tents and from under carts, mouths agape. Senlack gestured for them all to follow.

“Where are we heading?” Chamanca asked a woman jogging along with a toddler in her arms.

“To the bridge,” she replied, “back across the Renos, and hope that the devils cannot follow us.”

“I will run no more,” Chamanca said to Atlas. She’d never been part of a fleeing crowd before and she did not like trotting along in the panicked ranks like a terrified sheep, not one bit. “This legion of Felix’s might kill Germans with little bother, but have they fought an Iberian? I think not.”

She looked about. On second thoughts this was not a good place to make a stand. There were in a narrow avenue between tents, surrounded by refugees. She strained her ears. Possibly she was mistaken but …

“Spring,” she said, “can you hear what’s happening?”

The girl cocked her head. “Sounds like they’re coming back towards us.”

Chamanca nodded. That’s what she’d thought, too. She guessed they’d reached the other side of the camp and were retracing their steps to kill those they’d missed on the first pass. The screams were fewer now and more isolated, which supported her theory.

“As soon as there is room to fight,” Chamanca said, “I will stop fleeing.”

“We’ll see,” said Atlas.

They burst out of the camp and on to an expansive riverside meadow. It was short-grassed and busy with small brown sheep. A track across the centre of the meadow led to a thin wooden bridge. There was a trickle of Germans pounding across it. Given the size of the camp, the number escaping was pitiful.

“Right,” said Chamanca, “I will fight here. Atlas, Walfdan and Spring, cross the bridge and prepare to break it down in case I cannot kill them all.”

“I’ll stand with you,” said Atlas, “but let’s get closer to the bridge. These … things are fast. I want to see how they move before they’re on us. It may be that retreat is our best option.”

“Fine. I’ll pander to your African cowardice.” She was secretly a little relieved. She wasn’t worried for herself, but she’d rather Atlas didn’t throw his life away unnecessarily.

They chose a place fifty paces from the bridge. Atlas stood on one side of Chamanca, Senlack on the other. Spring and Walfdan headed for the bridge and safety. Chamanca was not surprised. Spring was a child and would be ineffectual, so it was sensible for her to live to fight another day, Chamanca would have done the same in her position. Walfdan’s retreat, on the other hand, was shameful. Now she knew how he’d survived the Roman’s purge of the Fenn-Nodens – by fleeing!

Chamanca was keen to see the monsters. She wasn’t frightened. Wounds that would have done for others had never killed her. She’d often wondered if she was immortal, but had decided that if she was injured badly enough – her head removed, for example – then she would die. Perhaps she’d find out today? It would be interesting to know.

She looked at Atlas. He was hefting his axe and breathing like an angry ox.

“If they prove too much,” she said, “I’ll try to hold them while you get across the river and break the bridge. I don’t trust the child and the old man.”

Atlas turned and grinned whitely. “We’ll be all right. But if we need to run, you run first. And you, Senlack.”

Senlack nodded and hoicked a thumb over his shoulder, as if to say that he’d be out of there the moment it started looking bad, thanks very much.

The trickle of Germans coming from the tents petered out then stopped. One last man appeared, fell and lay still.

The first of Felix’s dark legion appeared.

Chamanca looked at Atlas. He raised an eyebrow. She looked back.

Walking from the edge of the camp were four smallish, slender men. They were clad entirely in leather, including hoods and face coverings. The only gaps in their outfits were eye slits. Each held a slim, slightly curved, single-edged sword. As they neared, Chamanca saw that their blades were bloodied and their leathers shone with gore.

She knew that you couldn’t necessarily judge a fighter by appearance – she herself looked more like a beautiful princess than a Warrior, for example – so she should have been cautious. But she had the idea that the four of them were smiling under their masks, mocking her. So she charged.

The foremost stepped to meet her. She swooped her ball-mace in a graceful, duckable curve at his head, then lashed with her blade at the last moment for the gut shot. For the first time ever, the move failed. The Leatherman sidestepped with viper speed. He grabbed her sword hand and pulled her past him, tripping her and slicing at the back of her leg as she went down. She was so surprised at his pace that she almost forgot to block, swishing her blade round as she fell, just in time to bang his sword off target, then back for the disembowelling blow. He leapt like a deer so that her blade found only air, but she’d gained the space to land on her hands and spring over into a fighting stance.