Reign of Iron (9 page)

Her opponent stepped away but she saw his eyes flicker to something behind her. She dropped into a crouch as a sword parted the air where her neck had been an instant earlier, and swung her ball-mace back in a knee-crusher. That missed, too. By Fenn, they were
fast
!

But not as fast as she was. They couldn’t be. Chamanca charged back at the first Leatherman, blade whirling. He dodged. She’d expected the dodge and had already compensated by swinging her ball-mace. He dodged that, too – she hadn’t expected that. A fist hit her jaw like a hurled boulder. She was stunned. He darted behind her and pinned her arms in an unshakeable grip.

The second Leatherman came back at her, sword stabbing at her exposed midriff. She stamped and kicked, but dancing feet avoided her heels. She was caught, about to take a sword in the guts. She could see the smile in the swordsman’s eyes. He pressed the tip of his weapon into her stomach. Skin punctured and she felt the blade cleave muscle.

An arrow nicked her ear and sliced through the stabbing swordsman’s eye slit. The grip on her arms loosened for an eyeblink and Chamanca managed to wrench her arms free, slap a hand back, grab the man’s bollocks through leather, fall and twist … and he went limp, too, an arrow in his heart.

She stood. Twenty paces away, Senlack was dying, his stomach sliced open. Atlas was wrenching his axe from a Leatherman’s corpse. The other assailant was lying nearby, an arrow through his head. She looked towards the bridge. There was Spring, new arrow nocked, ready for anything else that emerged from the tent city. Chamanca herself had killed none, Atlas had killed one and the girl had done for three. Walfdan was nowhere to be seen.

“Come on,” said Atlas, “let’s go.” He set off for the bridge at a run.

Chamanca caught up with him. “I do not run!”

“Without Spring’s bow I would have died just then. You, too, by the looks of things.”

“So?”

“We fought only four. How many more are to come? From the noise in the square, many. And I don’t think those little leather-clad men are the worst of it either.” He glanced down at her bleeding stomach. “And you’re hurt. We go now. Can you walk?”

“Of course I can walk. I can run.”

Spring scanned the edge of the tents, arrow ready, as the two British Warriors ran towards her and the bridge. There were more Germans fleeing the camp, some of whom were wearing leathers. She nearly let fly at a couple of them before realising at the last moment that they weren’t the enemy.

The enemy … had been extraordinary. She’d held back initially, since killing the attackers after the others had claimed them would have been like shooting someone else’s bird on a game shoot and she knew that Chamanca in particular would not have been impressed. By the time she realised they were in trouble, it had been too late to save Senlack. She’d tried, but his attacker had dodged her first two arrows – while parrying Senlack’s attack – then sliced the Ootipeat king’s stomach open before she’d managed to hit him. Atlas had beaten one, but not easily, and Chamanca, facing two, had been losing when Spring intervened. How many troops like this did the Romans have? How could Lowa’s depleted army hope to hold against them? And would Chamanca be angry about Spring shooting her attackers before she’d had a chance to kill them?

“Come on!” Atlas said as he and the Iberian ran by. “And well done.” The clanging of iron on iron was so loud that it sounded like a crowd of giants in iron armour were running towards them through the camp. She was very happy to join the retreat.

“Thank you,” said Chamanca as they ran.

“Don’t mention it,” said Spring.

“Wasn’t planning to again,” said the Iberian, but she turned and flashed a genuine, pointy-toothed grin that gave Spring a warm rush despite the circumstances.

They bounded up the steps onto the bridge. It was a thin, wooden affair, supported on stone columns. The river below was brown and churning, fizzing white around the bridge supports. It was not a waterway you’d want to swim across.

On the other side was Walfdan, holding a flaming torch and standing next to a barrel of oil. Spring turned to look at the line of tents and her breath caught in her throat. An iron-encased giant ran into sight among the crowds of refugees. He picked up a German by the leg and threw her forty paces into the air. He grabbed another and did the same, then another and another. A couple of dozen more iron giants appeared. They had blades attached to their wrists and shins, and swords the length of hut posts. They set to killing. She saw one throw a German to another, who whacked the flying man with his wrist blade, slicing him in two in a spray of guts and blood. Another picked up a man, pulled his arm off, then beat him about the head with his own limb. They all killed in different ways with one uniting theme – they enjoyed it. They were playing.

“Wait until the Romans are on the bridge, then burn it,” said Atlas.

Spring opened her mouth to disagree – there were a lot of Germans on the other side of the Renos still – but he was right. It they didn’t burn the bridge those who’d made it across would die as well. She tried a few arrows on the giants but her missiles bounced off thick armour. More of the Leathermen appeared and she tried to hit them, but they moved so quickly that it was impossible at that distance. She’d just as likely hit one of the Germans. Not that that would matter really, since they were all going to die anyway.

A couple of iron giants gave up killing for a moment to sprint for the bridge.

“Now,” said Atlas.

“No,” said Walfdan. Spring saw that he was right. The armoured men didn’t intend to cross the bridge; they were there to stop any more Germans reaching safety. A company of Ootipeats and Tengoterry mustered and tried to fight their way past the Romans. They died.

“There will be no more coming. Light it,” said Atlas.

Walfdan leant forward, but the long blast of a horn rang out from the other side of the river, the thundering of hooves filled the air and he stayed his hand.

Stretching the entire width of the riverside meadow, galloping hard from the west, were the German cavalry, hundreds of them, hooting and shouting battle calls, blaring trumpets, holding coloured, rippling pennants aloft. All along the leading edge long spears were lifted then lowered. A horse-powered surge of spiked death thundered towards the Roman monsters.

“The Tengoterry cavalry!” shouted Walfdan, fire in his voice. “The finest cavalry in the world. The Roman creatures will not last long.”

They certainly did look good, thought Chamanca, but why were they fading? Oh, there we go, she was passing out. That punch to the head must have been harder than she’d realised. She took a step towards Atlas. He saw what was happening and took her in his arms. She collapsed into his embrace, the world swirled around her, narrowed into a point, then disappeared.

“I
’m sorry, Lowa. I’ve thought about it and I’ve changed my mind. My men and women will stay here.”

Jocanta Fairtresses, chief of the Haxmite tribe, looked far from sorry. She batted long eyelashes and smiled her increasingly irritating smile, the one that said, “I’m
so
beautiful,
aren’t
I?” Annoyingly, she probably was quite good-looking. She was a head taller than Lowa with a willowy bearing and the bright, slanted, appealing eyes of a fox cub. She was wearing a simple, long white dress, no more than a white sheet wrapped around her chest really, which showed off her lightly tanned, clear skin. The “Fairtresses” nickname was aggravatingly apt, too. Gleaming golden locks cascaded down either side of her elfishly beautiful face and bounced off her bare shoulders like weightless, gold-spun curtains. Lowa suspected that she kept her court and her flower-decorated throne outside her longhouse purely so that her hair would glow in the sun.

“You promised two hundred and fifty, armed and armoured.”

“A perk of being chief is that one is allowed to change one’s mind. Is it not very simple? Would you like me to explain again?” She smiled her smile once more, picked a flower from her wicker throne, sniffed it, crushed it and tossed it away.

Lowa clenched her fists. “The Romans threaten us all, Jocanta. Every other tribe has given or pledged men, women and supplies to fight them.”

“Oh, I know that, but why should I help? You seem to have it covered. You’ve got lovely hair, by the way.”

“I do have it covered. But you know that my army was reduced to a tenth of its strength when we fought—”

“I heard. It sounded simply awful – but also very much your problem, not mine.”

“The Romans—”

“Threaten us all, blah blah blah. I understand. I even believe you. But you’re going to try to fight them off with or without my two hundred and fifty, aren’t you? If you beat them, hooray for you, we’re all safe, let’s have a feast. If you don’t, the Romans will look favourably on the tribes that didn’t resist them. Like us. So go away, beat the Romans or don’t beat the Romans. Whatever happens, I win, without risking the lives of two hundred and fifty soldiers and the wrath of their kin.”

“If everyone thought like that, the land would be—”

“I’m not everyone.” The chief stepped forward, so that she was a couple of hands’ breadth from Lowa. The Maidun queen had the annoying choice of looking at Jocanta’s chest or tilting her head to look in her eyes. She chose the latter. Stepping back did not occur to her.

Jocanta looked down for a long pause, then said: “Now, would you rather walk out of my town or be carried out?” Her guards closed in behind her.

Mal put a hand on Lowa’s arm and she checked herself. She’d been reaching for her blade, but he was right. She could have killed Fairtresses before the guards reacted, but she and Mal would never have made it out of Haxam to the Two Hundred, who were waiting in the woods nearby. Since Grummog had captured her she’d been careful not to enter unknown territory without an appropriate guard, but Queen Jocanta had been so effusively welcoming and accommodating when they’d visited half a moon before that she’d thought she was just popping in to collect the promised quota before heading on her way, two hundred and fifty recruits stronger.

“Jocanta, I implore you, for your own sake, not to renege on your pledge.”

“For my own sake? Are you threatening me in my own hillfort? That would not be clever. Perhaps you’d like to discuss the matter with our champion, Yilgarn Craton, Warrior and slayer of a hundred?”

A dark-eyed, big-nosed man in a thick, sleeveless leather jerkin and a plain iron helmet stepped forward from the other guards. He stood square and jutted his bony chin at the Maidunites. He was absurdly stocky – not much taller than Lowa, but about three times as wide. Black hair sprouted from his helmet and down his back. He tossed his axe from hand to hand, stretching his arms out to show the size of his biceps. They were enormous, wildly disproportionate to his height, bigger even than Atlas’. He was wearing the wild boar necklace of a Warrior – someone who’d killed more than ten in a single battle. Lowa had one, too – she’d fulfilled the Warrior quota many times over in many battles – but she never wore it because she preferred to be underestimated.

She quashed the impulse to challenge Yilgarn Craton in exchange for the troops. She’d been training with the blade like a woman obsessed recently and was almost back to her pre-childbirth ability. So she could have taken on three oafs like Craton quite happily but, given that Jocanta had already gone back on her word, she seemed unlikely to honour any pledges made on the outcome of a duel. No: if she fought Yilgarn and won, her chances of leaving the Haxmite hillfort alive were around zero. Even without a fight, odds on escape wasn’t much higher than zero. Surely Jocanta knew that Lowa would not let her get away with this; that her safest option by far would have been to have her slingers kill Lowa and Mal as they walked away?

“All right, Jocanta, I understand,” said Lowa. “Your desire to protect your people is admirable. I urge you to reconsider, but I cannot make you. If you change your mind, your troops will be welcome at Maidun. I didn’t intend to threaten you, merely to stress the point that the Romans will be trouble for everyone if they invade successfully. I shall try to ensure that they do not.”

“Very well,” said Jocanta. “Good luck against those nasty invaders!”

“O noble and beautiful Jocanta, let me fight her.” The head guard Yilgarn took a step forward and knelt with his head down, his axe out in front of him, shaft in his hands and its double-bladed head on the ground.

“No, no, no, get back, Yilgarn!” Jocanta laughed. “Who will defend us from the Romans if you kill Lowa? No, she must go. Goodbye, Queen Lowa!”

Lowa pulled up the corners of her mouth in an attempt at a smile, turned and walked away through the town of Haxam, Mal at her side.

“Town” was something of a misnomer. Haxam was really a sprawling village on a bulge of land, surrounded by a single ditch and a low, palisaded bank. The palisade was leaning in many places, a sign that its posts had been dug too shallow, not packed in well enough or both. There clearly hadn’t been any raiding here for a long time. Spaced around the wall were towers built of bone and interlaced with flowers to honour Branwin, the goddess of love and beauty. The bones were human – nothing sinister, Lowa guessed – just the dead of the tribe left to be picked clean by birds at the top of the ever-growing towers.

The Haxmites stopped their smithing, shearing, bartering or chatting to watch the Maidunites pass. Most of them nodded cheery greetings. Many of the women had over-styled hair in emulation of Jocanta Fairtresses, but Lowa didn’t despise them for it. She’d noticed that a lot of women, and men in fact, in Maidun had started wearing outfits similar to the iron-heeled riding boots, leather trousers and white cotton shirt that she herself wore pretty much every day. People copied rulers. It wasn’t a big deal and didn’t make them bad people. It made them idiots and sheep, but not bad people.

Despite the Haxmites’ ostensible congeniality, Lowa expected them to pull blades and attack at any moment. Surely Jocanta knew that she couldn’t break a promise and expect nothing to happen? In case she didn’t, and somehow they were allowed to go free, Lowa made careful note of the layout of huts and tracks as they walked along, both her and Mal trying to look cheery and unthreatening. There was no need to share her fears; Mal knew the danger they were in.