The Eaorl (The Casere Book 2) (3 page)

Conn explained what he knew of the force confronting them.

‘So it shouldn’t be too hard to rout this lot?’

‘I’m trying to avoid that. I think that they are on our side – it is just the Aebeling who isn’t.’

‘And you are sure we are not going to be met with a shower of arrows. It is too nice a day to die like that…’

‘I don’t think so – he just wants us to turn around – even he knows he can’t win this battle – but there will be significant casualties on both sides. The Rakians have told him that we are not to get through.’

Messages that had been intercepted on the Rakian ships were very clear on the objective – do not let the ‘Feorrancund’ pass. Conn also knew that most of the Eaorls did not actually want fight the ‘Feorrancund’, but had turned up because not doing so would result in being declared a traitor.

‘I hope you are right – even I can’t save you from a thousand arrows.’

By the time they arrived within shouting distance of the Kanians, it was obvious that the ‘welcome’ party looked dishevelled; any semblance of order and control was gone; the horses were terrified of the sound that continued to play as Conn and his group rode up to the line of Kanian wiga. As they got closer, Conn signalled a stop to the music.

Eventually the person who looked like he could be the Aebeling struggled to the front of his Fyrd. At his side was Theostan, Eaorl of Dor – who looked at Conn with rage. Behind them arrived five very attractive wiga – dressed like Halla, they were members of his Valkeri bodyguard.

‘What is that infernal racket?’ He yelled. As he spoke Conn could hear the Ratakian Gyden in the Aebeling’s head. He must be wearing one of those black stones around his neck.

‘Bagpipes from Taransay. Would you like to hear some more?’ Conn asked innocently.

‘No, I do not. What I want is for you to turn your … your rabble around and return to Lykia. I am not letting you go through Kania. It will not happen.’

‘Why are you sure that I won’t just try?’

‘You would be a fool’ The Aebeling laughed. ‘I have five thousand wiga. You will never pass. You have what – less than one thousand…’

Conn shook his head. ‘Not quite – I have a few more than that.’ Conn signalled the drummer, and a beat was heard across the valley. This was the signal for his force to make its presence felt, and within thirty minutes, the hills to the west were covered with wiga. A second beat started and Bram and his Lykians soon arrived; albeit further away, and in the east. The next beat of the drums and Esras’s wiga appeared from the south.

‘Can you defend from all quarters? I grant you that you have more wiga than me, but every single one of mine will die for me. I’d like you to meet some of them before you decide to fight.’

Already nervous at the sight of so many wiga, the Eaorls started to natter and talk amongst themselves. The Aebeling turned and yelled at them.

‘Do not listen to him; he is playing with your minds; you will be protected behind a wall of the best infantry in Kania. Nothing will get through.’

Conn signalled the drummer gain, and with different beat, a squad of ten of the heavily armoured Cataphracts cantered down and up the hill. They stopped and lowered their lances

Conn did the honors. ‘I would like you to meet my Cataphracts. You will meet them again when they charge this encampment, and I hope that you will be able to get out of the way. There are 500 of them, so I doubt that you will do it with ease.’ Conn ordered them to yield and they returned to the bottom of the hill. ‘They prefer a longer run up’ he explained.

A different beat ensured and a company of Sagittari arrived; the wiga brimming with bows and hundreds of arrows.

‘These are my Sagittari – they have a range about fifty yards longer than your bowmen. I have nearly two thousands of them. I intend them to fire from that hill side to this hillside; they are accurate even at that distance.’ They too yielded and returned down the hill.

The disquiet in the crowd continued but the Aebeling was silent. The Eaorls were all very scared but Conn was relieved to find that he was yet to scare the Aebeling. The noise in his head was too strong for that. He was however starting to look very angry.

‘Gorman,’ Conn decided to be conciliatory. ‘You have everything to lose and nothing to be gained by fighting. I grant that you have more men than me – but you will have to admit that mine look a lot better than yours. They are also very loyal – all will die and not yield unless I say so. Can you rely on your wiga or Eaorls? Do you really think that they can withstand a bombardment of ten thousand arrows and a charge of my Cataphracts?’

Gorman’s hands were clenched together. Gorman was struggling and the voice inside his head sensed that as well, and it fought to bolster his resolve. Conn needed to push him just a little further.

‘Though I must admit, I’m a little unsure about the loyalty of some of my people. Would you like to meet her?’

Conn signalled again, and four riders approached them. Gorman’s eyes flew from one to another, he obviously knew about Halla as he didn’t respond. He was more surprised when he saw Derryth, and his voice showed disbelief. ‘What is a Twacuman doing here? A Twacuman will not take up arms against me.’

Derryth nodded. ‘Maybe – maybe not. However, I’m just observing – watching the Thane doing his stuff is the most fun I’ve had in sixty years.’

Conn interrupted him. ‘Not him, it’s this one. Do you think I can rely on her?’

Gorman was becoming exasperated, ‘Why are you asking me, I don’t know…’ He stopped when she removed the scarf from her head. ‘Esme? Gyden, it looks like Esme …’ Behind him were shocked people also; relatives of both Esme and Esras were in the crowd of Eaorls and Thanes.

Brit spoke, ‘No cousin, I am not Esme, I am her daughter...’

‘Brit? I thought you were dead. Gyden, you look like your mother…. But how … why are … what are you doing with the… the… Lykians?’

Brit laughed, ‘He’s not a Lykian. I thought you would have noticed that. Somehow, I don’t think he is from these parts at all.’

Gorman looked back at Conn. ‘So, Feorrancund, why is the daughter of my traitor uncle riding with you?’

‘Brit is betrothed to the Healdend of Moetia’s cousin, and her father has promised him an Eaorldom as a wedding gift.’

‘And what Eaorldom is ‘Uncle’ Esras going to give him’ He snarled and spat out this question. Conn could feel that the Gyden’s influence was fading; pure rage was starting to take over.

‘My Grandfather’s – or I should say, OUR grandfather’s.’ Brit answered sincerely. ‘You usurped it from my father, after you raped and murdered my mother. It is my birth-right, and I want it back.’ Conn was very pleased with her performance, though these words were now off script. She was ad-libbing.

Gorman had turned his back on her to face his fyrd, and her words hit him hard. The crowd gasped; Theostan gasped – but for different reasons. He twirled back at her.

‘How DARE you accuse me of such an act.’ In front of everyone he had been accused of theft, rape and murder, and his face was now turning red. ‘You will recant your words or you will die.’

‘Make me; raping, murdering, bastard son of an Ancuman sow.’

The girl was definitely off the rehearsed speech now. She released her cloak and taunted him further – she was beautiful and her armour accentuated her figure. ‘Sometimes I have doubted that you did rape my mother – perhaps you just killed her – is it true that young boys are what you prefer to have in your chamber at night?’ Insult upon insult.

Gorman was not used to being spoken to like this and it was too much for him. All restraint fled, he drew his sword and leapt to attack the girl; the first strike missing her by inches as she rolled out of his reach.

Conn reached for his sword, but Halla stopped him, placing her hand on his arm. ‘Leave her, she will be fine.’

Conn instead tossed his wakizashi, which she caught coming out of the roll. Gorman attacked again, and the clang of swords rang out down the valley. Some of Gorman’s men were about to intervene but with a quick signal, Conn’s guard, as well as Halla and Derryth, had arrows pointing at the Eaorls, and they desisted. They seemed happy they didn’t have to intervene.

Brit had spent the last months training with Halla, and she was no mere pampered girl to start with. So it was not surprising that, despite his weight and reach advantage, it was soon clear that she was his match. Every swing tired and frustrated him and he was soon exposing himself to counter attack. His increasing frustration didn’t help, and it was not long before he over extended and Brit took advantage of his mistake. He looked in shock at the wakizashi that appeared so suddenly in his chest. He fell to his knees, his sword falling from his hand

Behind him the Eaorl of Dor took his chance and reached for a knife from his belt. Knife throwing was something the Rakians trained hard at, but he was too slow; he had hardly raised the knife before Conn’s dagger and two arrow were imbedded in his chest. He looked up with total surprise before he fell to his knees and then his face.

Conn got in first. ‘That doesn’t count – your arrow arrived after my knife.’ He was talking to Derryth.

‘It did not. My arrow got to him first. I think I have officially saved your life. We are even.’

Halla shook her head sadly as she walked over and retrieved the arrows and Conn’s knife. ‘You are both children. The kill shot was mine – and you both know it.’

The silence was broken by the arrival of Esras. As soon as Esras had seen his nephew strike at Brit he had galloped up the slope to defend his daughter, but by the time he had arrived and dismounted, Gorman was dying. The last face he saw was of his uncle, the man he hated the most in the entire world.

‘Damn you, damn all of you.’ were his last words as he fell to the ground.

Halla went to the body and retrieved the blade, wiping it clean on his clothes; she returned it to Conn with the dagger. ‘Told you.’

Esras was livid – ‘You didn’t tell me that she was going to be at risk – that wasn’t part of the plan!

‘True’, Conn said, ‘But I didn’t know she was going to accuse him of rape and murder either – that wasn’t part of the script. Anyway, she possibly has as much a right as you to sink a blade into his stomach.’ Conn looked around at the Kanians. None had moved. They didn’t really know what to do; they had lost the momentum and their leader; they waited.

Conn walked with Esras to the Eaorls. He spoke aloud. ‘As we say in Taransay, “The king is dead, long live the king”. I’m going to give you a few seconds to consider your options before I order my men to start firing. So what do you say…?’

Needing no further invitation, the Eaorls fell to their knees. Immediately the Thanes followed and the entire Kanian force bowed. One of the Eaorls stood – it was Dagdail, the Eaorl of Ar, and called out ‘All hail Esras, Aebeling of Kania.’ The other Eaorls quickly followed. ‘Hail Esras, Aebeling of Kania’ they chorused. Conn indicated they do it again, and after their ‘All hail Esras, Aebeling of Kania,’ the entire valley echoed in acclaim.

Almost immediately after, they stood and came forward to greet Esras like the long lost friend that he was. It had been a remarkably easy transition of power. Conn hoped that all his plans went just as well.

Dagdail came and greeted Conn, shaking his hand.

‘I am never disappointed when I see you Thane – it is always very impressive. Anyway, that went quite well I thought. Much better than I was expecting. I was expecting to die, so this is definitely an improvement. Even then I was grateful that we weren’t at sea but your wiga are more terrifying than your ships. So now that we have all this sorted – you wouldn’t happen to have any food would you? I have been eating nothing but what could only be described as horse food for weeks.’

Conn laughed, and had a messenger go and arrange for food supplies to be brought forward. He was aware that food was running low for the Kanians – it might have had something to do with the blockade he was running in the bay. He had extra supplies brought just for this purpose – a little good goes a long way.

It was late before everyone was finally together in the large tent that Conn had constructed in his camp; both fyrds had been settled (and fed) and Conn had to settle a few issues. Conn was sitting with Bran, Aebeling of Moetia, when Esras, his daughter, and the eight Kanian Eaorls joined him.

Conn asked about the Rakians.

‘All in custody. You were right to suggest that they might try to leave in a hurry. But what is to stop Rakians in Kaniak from escape or even burning down the town.’

Conn disagreed. ‘A lot. By tomorrow, every significant Rakian in Kaniak will be in custody. I have arranged for a few of them to be kidnapped and they should be sitting quietly on one of my ships in the harbour.’

Esras was confused. ‘What ships? You have ships?’

Dagdail, the Eaorl of Ar burst into laughter. ‘His ships are not just any old ships – they are magnificent.’

They all looked at him. ‘Dagdail,’ Esras asked, ‘what have you not been telling us?’

‘Let me tell you about the first time I met the Thane.’

Some time and a couple of tankards of beer later, Dagdail had completed his story and Conn had explained what his ships had been doing over the winter – and would be doing soon. Pigeons had flown to Kania – he had a certain Gatinan working for him whose ships were singularly successful in escaping his blockades, and who had a very small espionage business ongoing in the town. He now knew of the result of the “war” and was making “arrangements” on Conn’s behalf to ensure that the Rakians didn’t flee and didn’t damage anything. He of course didn’t share the finer details with the Eaorls – the espionage operation needed to be ongoing.