The Amber Road (42 page)

Behind Ballista, someone smothered a sneeze. It should not matter. They had come up from the south. The wind was across their faces. Ballista raised himself on his elbow, and looked back. The men were blackened and muffled, their outlines broken and indistinct in the banded moonlight under the trees. A Black-Harii such as Wada the Short could have found little at which to complain. After Olbia and Ouiadoua Bank, even the Romans and Olbians must be becoming accustomed to night fighting. At least those who survived.

The hearth-troop had been hit hard at Norvasund. Twenty-three had fallen there: Dunnere Tethered-Hound and another three Heathobards, the Rugian pilot, four Romans, seven Olbians and seven of the young Angle nobles. All had been cut down around Ballista on the hill, except two Angles who had met their end fighting under Wada at the palisade, and another lost from one of the boats commanded by Ivar Horse-Prick. When all those left had been gathered, just thirty-six men had filed on to the
Warig
, several of them carrying wounds.

The previous afternoon, they had put in at a deserted stretch of coast near the main port of Abalos, hidden the
Warig
in a creek. Mord had volunteered to go on foot into the settlement. His grandmother was a Bronding. He had relatives there who would not betray him. Eadric, son of Eadwine, had gone with him. To look peaceful, they had taken off their helmets and coats of mail, left behind their shields and bows. It had taken much courage from both of them.

The young men had returned in the gloaming. The news they brought could not have been better. Unferth had withdrawn from the port. He was with his sworn companions in his hall on Gnitaheath.

Mord had led them to this concealed vantage point. Ballista looked up through the branches at the moon. They must have lain here for four hours or more. At first, messengers had come and gone up the road to the hall, riding hard. Unferth must be trying to gather what support remained to him, plan his next move. After Norvasund, Ballista could not imagine what that might be. But a cornered animal was always dangerous.

Now the doors of the hall had not opened and there had been no movement for some time. The light seeping around the shutters had dimmed to almost nothing.

Ballista whispered for Castricius, Ivar Horse-Prick and Wada to come close. He outlined his plan. Like those at Gudme, the hall had two main doors. They were situated opposite each other in the long walls. Ballista would take the one facing west with ten men. Castricius with the same number would take the other. There might be smaller doors. Ivar and five warriors were to ring the north of the building, Wada and the remaining five the south. They should stay at a distance and be vigilant. Some halls had underground passages designed for those inside to escape. When they were all in position, Ballista would call on Unferth to surrender, or those around him to give him up. Most probably, these would be refused. If the defenders were so minded, Ballista’s men would let any women and children leave. Then they would break open the doors. They had brought axes, but it would be better if they could find timbers among the farm buildings with which to batter down the doors. If all else failed, they had tinderboxes.

With not much noise, they separated into the four groups. Huddled around Ballista were Maximus, Tarchon, Rikiar the Vandal, the Romans Diocles and Heliodorus, and Mord, with four other young Angles. There was no telling how many fighting men were in the hall with Unferth. The thirty-four of Ballista’s party might be outnumbered, possibly by some margin. Surprise would be lost by the summons, but it could not be helped.

Ballista smiled at Mord in the gloom. The youth grinned back. Ballista thought of what lay ahead of the
atheling
. Vermund the Heathobard and Hieroson the Olbian were back at the boat with the prisoner. When they returned to Gudme and the court of the
cyning
, when finally the captive was unmasked, the words he would be forced to repeat would strike at the heart of Mord’s young life. If, of course, Mord or any of them lived to return to Varinsey. Ballista put it all out of his mind.

There was nothing to be gained by delay.
Do not think, just act
. Ballista got to his feet. The others got up, too. He led them out of the wood.

In the blue moonlight, they jogged along a hedge which divided two meadows. They could hear nothing over the thump of their boots, the creak of leather, their grunted breathing. Ballista’s bow and quiver banged against his back, his shield dragged at his arm.

Silent on great white wings, an owl glided overhead.

From nowhere, Ballista half remembered a line from Plato: ‘The greatest hunting is the hunting of men.’

The ridge of the hall loomed closer.

No alarm rang out.

Ballista reached the fence. With his dagger, he cut the rope securing the wicket gate. He slipped into the farmyard, the others at his back.

The homely smells of woodsmoke and animal dung, the reek of a midden. Hard-trodden earth underfoot. The sounds of a horse shifting in its stable. Still no outcry. No dogs or geese loose to give a warning. Ballista angled to the left, close under the overhanging eaves. He stopped before the western door. Dark shapes around him. Ivar and his men passed behind.

Ballista whispered for Rikiar and Heliodorus to look for a timber which could serve as a ram. They disappeared into the outbuildings. Ballista waited. So far, so good. They had outrun the news of their coming, outrun all expectation. Unferth had no sentries posted. He had arrived on Abalos but hours before them. No one would have considered such close pursuit.

Heliodorus spoke in Ballista’s ear. Beams could be pulled from a cowshed, but it would make a noise. Ballista said they would do it later.

Ballista drew Battle-Sun. The serpentine pattern in the blade shimmered in the moonlight. Alone, he walked to the door. It was tall and wide. There was a pile of dry chickweed to one side. He put his ear against the boards; why, he was not sure. The sound of a man snoring, of more than one, reverberating in the big space.

Ballista straightened up and struck the pommel of Battle-Sun against the door. The boards jumped and rattled. The sound boomed into the hall, out over the yard. He struck again.

‘Unferth! You are surrounded. It is over. Surrender.’

Shouts from inside. The crash of a table or bench overturning. Feet drumming on the floorboards. The scrape of steel; weapons being tugged free.

Ballista stepped back, locked his shield with the others. They crouched in the night, linden boards well out and angled upwards. If the door opened, the first response might well be a flight of steel-tipped shafts.

Above, a shutter squealed and swung open from a previously unseen window in the thatch. So, the hall had a loft. The head and shoulders of a man in the opening. The face glittered with cold, immobile metal.

‘Who is there?’ The mask gave an inhuman quality to the voice.

‘Dernhelm, son of Isangrim, the one the Romans call Ballista.’

The carved face looked down. ‘The killer of my son.’

‘You know me then. Unferth, do not make your followers share your death. Show yourself a man. Release them from their oaths. Give yourself up.’

There was something uncanny about the silent, unmoving regard of the silvered mask.

Ballista raised his voice. ‘You Brondings and any others in there, your leader has no more luck. Hand him over, and you will go free.’

‘No!’ A shout came from the floor of the hall, behind the door. ‘We gave our sword-oath. We would be dishonoured.’

Keeping his eye on the upper window, Ballista addressed the unseen warrior. ‘There is no dishonour in renouncing an oath extracted under compulsion, an oath to an evil man.’

The voice answered from behind the door. ‘Save your cunning arguments for yourself, Oath-breaker. We stay. Every man must give up the days that are lent to him.’

Ballista called up to where Unferth still stood in the window. ‘If there are women and children in there, we will let them depart unharmed.’

The mask nodded. ‘It is not possible to bend fate, nor stand against nature. It will be as you say.’

‘Have them come out of this door, no other.’

The mask withdrew, pulling the shutters to behind it.

They heard the bar lifted, then the door opened. Only the low remains of the hearth fire illuminated the cavernous interior. A dozen figures emerged: three children, nine women, one with a swaddled babe in arms. Before the door closed, Ballista saw the dull gleam of serried ranks of helms and mailcoats. Many men would die before the hall could be cleared; perhaps too many.

‘Wada, have two of your men lead them away,’ Ballista called.

Grim and another Heathobard went up to the women.

‘Wait!’ It was Maximus. ‘That one in the middle – the big one with the broad shoulders – grab her!’

The woman threw her cloak in Grim’s face. Steel flashed from a concealed blade. It cut deep into Grim’s leg. He howled as he fell. The other Heathobard hacked down the warrior disguised as a woman.

Screaming, the women and children scattered into the night. Their cries and the ways they ran vouched for the genuine nature of their gender and age.

Grim was dragged away. As his compatriot tied a tourniquet around the Heathobard’s thigh, Ballista gave new orders to Diocles.

When the Roman had vanished around the hall towards Castricius, Ballista and his men moved back into the obscurity between two farm buildings. They unslung their bows, notched arrows and trained them on the door.

From the far side of the hall came the noise of heavy things being manhandled, of loud hammering.

Ballista knew it was a terrible thing that he had decided to do, but he could see no other way.

The noise from the east side stopped. All was quiet in the farmyard, as if it were a normal night, as if awful things were not unfolding. When a cow lowed in its byre, it sounded unnaturally loud.

‘What are they doing in there?’ Mord whispered.

‘Waiting,’ Ballista said. The women would have loved ones in the hall. They would spread the news. It was only four or five miles to the port. Time was not an ally to the attackers. At any moment Fate could turn them into quarry, hunted down across a dark, alien landscape. You could never rely on
Wyrd.

Diocles rounded the hall, Castricius and eight of his men in his wake. ‘All done,’ he said.

‘Nailed up tight as a vestal’s cunt,’ Castricius said. ‘I left two to keep watch.’

‘The chickweed,’ Ballista said.

Diocles darted forward. As he crossed the twenty or so paces of open ground before the doors, an arrow whipped out from the tiny window high above. It missed the soldier by a hand’s breadth. He dived under the overhanging thatch.

Sparks dropping in the darkness. A glow from under Diocles’ hunched body.

When the chickweed was well alight, Diocles leaned out and swung it high on to the thatch. It hung there. The fire in it seemed to diminish. Then little tendrils of flame snaked out across the roof.

Diocles moved away north under the protection of the drooping eaves, took a roundabout route back.

Maximus touched Ballista’s arm, pointed. Three men with torches were moving towards the southern end of the building. They threw them cartwheeling over the gable wall, then faded back into the shadows.

The weather had been dry. The west wind breathed life into the flames.

Ballista sent runners to call Wada and Ivar and their followers to him. As in the east, just two warriors were to remain at the northern and southern ends. The wounded Heathobard Grim was to remain with the latter.

‘Watch the door,’ Ballista said. There should be twenty-six men spread out around him in the darkness. Each should have his bow trained on the door. He wondered if it would be enough.

‘The
daemons
of death are close.’ Castricius spoke softly in Latin. In the baleful firelight, smeared with soot, he looked like one himself.

The middle of the roof was blazing fiercely, the southern end flaring up. If the women had not already done so, this ghastly beacon would raise the countryside. Would relief arrive before the fire drove the defenders out or buried them under falling timbers?

‘Watch the door,’ Ballista said.

The outlines of black figures emerged up on the roof. Balanced precariously on the beams, they hacked at the burning and smouldering thatch. The great lumps they threw down fell like molten waterfalls.

There was no need for orders. Out of the darkness, arrows flew. The defenders on the roof were illuminated by the fires. They could not see the missiles coming. One after another, shafts found their mark and figures pitched into oblivion.

Above the door, a man’s tunic caught fire. In an awful dumb-show, he beat at it with his hands, until he missed his narrow footing and crashed to earth like a northern Icarus.

After that, the defenders withdrew, and no more ventured on to the roof.

The fire roared. The heat of it was hot on Ballista’s face even at a distance. Deep in the thatch, it seemed to breathe like a great beast. There was a horrible smell, all too like roast pork. Ballista thought of the Goths before Novae, the Persians at Arete, his own at Aquileia; all the men he had seen burnt.

A deep groan from within the hall, a sharp crack, and the southern end of the roof sagged. The first of the beams had burnt through. They must come soon. No one could abide in that inferno.

‘Watch the doors.’

The words were still on Ballista’s lips when the door flew open. On an instant arrows thrummed into the opening. The two warriors pushing the doors fell transfixed by many shafts.

Looking into the hall was like looking into a scene of divine punishment yet to be tenanted. The orange glow played on the empty high seat, the first pairs of great columns. No man could be seen in the swirling smoke.

They came with a yell, out from both sides where they had been huddled against the walls. They rushed together to form a shield-burg in the doorway. They were too slow, too clumsy in their desperation. Arrows plucked men off their feet, hurled them backwards. They collided with those behind. Those on the floor tripped those still on their feet. Ballista released, notched, released again. All around him others did the same. The doorway was filled with shafts flitting like bats.