Wolfbane (Historical Fiction Action Adventure Book, set in Dark Age post Roman Britain) (35 page)

Aided my moonlight, Dominic’s company made good progress. One hour into the journey, they spotted the glow of a campfire ahead. Following Dominic, they flanked the encampment, before rejoining the road one mile beyond it. For the rest of that night, the woods encroached ever thicker around them as they made steady progress away from the Saxon camp. One hour before dawn, Dominic noticed a flat bed of sandstone abutting the road.

He turned to Withred. ‘This looks like a good place to leave. We’ll leave no prints here, and once in the forest we’ll be gone from them.’

The group stopped. Dominic addressed them all. ‘Some of you know the forest,’ he said, ‘so I’ve no need to tell you that the going gets tougher from here on. As long as you always follow me and listen to what I have to say, all should be well.’ 

He turned and rode into the shadow of the trees. Murdoc, who rode at the back, took one last look up the road. He sighed and entered the forest, ready for five days of hard slog.

As he picked his way through a tangle of brambles, Dominic turned to Augustus who now rode with the boy, Ula. ‘We need to travel in the daytime from here onwards,’ he said. ‘Night travel is not possible in the forest as you well know.’

‘I reckon the chasing group will be rousing by now and getting ready to continue the hunt,’ said Augustus. ‘I know we’re all tired, but don’t you think it would be better if we continue for the rest of the day and keep our advantage over them?’

‘Undoubtedly,’ agreed Dominic. ‘A day’s travel will get me to forest I’m more familiar with. From then on we should be clear and away.’

‘Tonight we’ll sleep well then,’ said Withred, who was in earshot, riding behind. ‘A night followed by a day in the saddle is enough to put any man into a dead sleep.’

It took them all of the morning to get through the snags of bramble and nettle on the edge of the forest. The demanding passage hampered their progress, and it was past noon before they reached a colony of beech and the going became easier for them.

Here they stopped and ate a sparing meal, whilst the horses grazed nearby. When satisfied the horses had recovered some of their stamina, the company resumed their journey and continued through the afternoon.

Two hours before dusk, they came upon an extensive tangle of bracken that grew profusely in a part of the forest that undulated and dipped, but was relatively free of tree cover.

Dominic led them into one of the deep troughs of bracken. ‘Enough is enough,’ he said, as he wearily dismounted to stand knee-high in the vegetation. ‘Here’s as good a place as any to rest up for the night. We’re unsighted here and there’s water nearby, so we may as well stop.’

‘It’s unlikely we’re being followed now, anyway,’ said Withred. ‘We made no prints when we left the road.’

Augustus stood beside his horse and lifted Ula down. Cate and Art followed as he took them from Murdoc and Flint’s mount. He smiled at the twins as they stood by the bracken. Fondly, he crouched down and touched Cate’s cheek. He nodded towards a bracken couch nearby. ’A nice springy bed for three little ducklings,’ he chuckled.

As her brothers joined her, Cate put her arms around them and fell backwards into the bracken. She smiled up at Augustus and loved what she saw in the man. Enormous and jovial, he made her feel safe. The other men seemed kind enough, but their stern bearing and single-mindedness still frightened her somewhat.

Augustus, though, always had an amused twinkle in his eye and looked anything but strict to her. She had heard him teasing the other men, heard him laugh his big booming laugh, and could not help but like him. Therefore, she was glad when he sat beside her and her brothers in the bracken and began to laugh and joke with
them
.

Murdoc had already dismounted and was pulling the day’s accumulated vegetation from his horse’s girdle and harness. He still wore the fine tunic he had donned two days earlier when posing as a merchant in Norwic. ‘Fine dandies we all make,’ he said as he pulled off his tunic and routed through his saddle pack for a shirt better suited to the woods. ‘Not sure it’s right for four more days riding through this undergrowth though.’

Flint stood beside him. Having stripped his own horse of its harness, reins and girdle, he wiped its withers down with a cloth wetted from the nearby stream. The horse shook—shivering with pleasure as the cool water ran down its withers.

‘I could do with a bit of this myself,‘ Flint said. ‘It must feel good to the horses to get the heavy tack off them. Gilt bronze tack is as bad for
them
as embroidered tunics are for
us
in this forest.’

Murdoc unbuckled the harness from his horse. ‘Pity we didn’t have time to get this fancy stuff off them before we left Norwic.’ He paused and examined the harness, frowning. ‘Although it seems my horse has already shook one of its cheek ornaments off its bridle.’ He held the bridle up. One of the gilt bronzes had gone.

Dominic stopped sorting through his kit and looked at the harness
. Please let it have dropped into the bracken,
he thought.

CHAPTER NINE

One day earlier, just before dawn, Griff had blistered with rage. His hut on the edge of town was small but well equipped. Having no wish to rub shoulders with the scum in his brothel, he used the hut for his overnight stays in Norwic. Now he smashed through it, upturning tables and chairs and raging at the cowering man who had brought him the news of the theft of his slaves.

He filled a goblet with wine and shakily lifted it to his lips. ‘Imbeciles!’ he said, as his wrath exploded again. He threw the goblet at the wall and grabbed the man before him. ‘They could have a full night’s lead on us. Why do you bring me this news, now? Was no one checking on them?’

Bryce, a sailor from the boat, silently cursed the captain for sending him to break the bad news to Griff. Nothing he had to say could assuage Griff’s anger. He nervously eyed the glowering dogs that stood behind Griff. ‘Someone killed the man sent to check on them,’ he sputtered. ‘Broke his neck they did. Must have been a giant of a man.’

Griff shook his head in a flamboyant display of incredulity. ‘And so he was left lying dead all night. Did no one notice he was missing?’ Before Bryce could reply, Griff raged on, jabbing his finger at his own head as if a universal truth had just dawned on him.  ‘No, no … of course … nobody would notice he was missing because you’d all be blistering drunk as usual! Last night in port and you all pour ale and wine down you as if your lives depended upon it! How could I possibly forget
that
!’

Bryce shifted uncomfortably as he looked at the floor. Then, his one bit of good news occurred to hi
m
and he looked up eager to please. ‘The old women were caught, though,’ he said. ‘They hadn’t got far when they were captured by Ranulf’s group returning along the northern road.’

Griff looked at Bryce, his searing gaze forcing the man to look down at his shoes again. This time Griff positively hissed at him. ‘So I lose the children, lose the gold of their worth, and you try to bolster me with news that you have found me a pile of dog meat?’ 

Liking his new tone even less than his earlier ranting, Bryce gave him a frightened little nod of affirmation.

Griff pushed him to the door, his tone now determined and businesslike. ‘Right … away with you … get out, and tell your captain I’ll see
him
later. You say that Ranulf has returned. Get him to me now.’ 

‘Gone?’ said Ranulf, as Griff told him the news a little time later. They stood outside Griff’s brothel as the sky began to lighten. Ranulf held a tankard of strong ale. ‘This was to be my nightcap, or should I say daycap,’ he grumbled. ‘The men will not be happy. They’ve got their minds set on whoring, then sleeping through the day. It was bad enough I asked them to ride through the night, but a day of leisure here today appealed to them. Now I have to tell them to get back on their ponies and set off on a chase.’

‘It’s a pity your night ride didn’t come up from the south,’ grumbled Griff. ‘You’d have come upon the thieving no-goods who took the children, but at least that tells us they took the southern road towards Camulodunum.’ He weighed a purse of gold coin in his hand. ‘This is for you and the men. It should make it easier for you to drag them from their flopsies. It’s a quarter the worth of the children. Another quarter awaits you if you return with them.’

Ranulf took the coin. ‘Have you any idea who took them? How many men we can expect to engage?’ 

‘Just five of them, but don’t be fooled, I spoke to them yesterday. Said they were buyers for slaves, but I should’ve known. They looked rugged and vicious. Their features shaped more by combat than trade. Be complacent at your peril, Ranulf, they’ve already killed in Norwic.’

Irvin, Ranulf’s British tracker, joined them. Griff told him the news. ‘Ten men, including Ranulf and me, should be enough,’ he advised. ‘That gives us sufficient advantage in numbers and rapid mobility.’

‘Get volunteers,’ said Ranulf as he looked towards the brothel. ‘The gold-hungry ones will soon drag themselves from their whores.’

One hour later, Ranulf, Irvin and eight other men, all lightly provisioned, bade their leave of Griff.

‘We may be half a day behind from what Griff told us,’ said Irvin as he rode at the front with Ranulf. ‘I can’t see them travelling through the day, though. This road runs through Camulodunum all the way to Londinium. It’s too dangerous for them, so we must look for signs where they left the road. That’s how we’ll catch them. If they lie up today, we should be near to them by the time we rest up tonight.’

They witnessed neither sign nor sight of the fugitives that day, until one hour before dusk when Irvine’s finely tuned eye spotted a disturbance on a stony track that led from the road.

He held up his hand to stop the men, then dismounted and stooped to examine the track.

Ranulf looked hopefully at him. ‘Found something?’

Irvine picked up a stone, a contemplative frown creasing his forehead. ‘Maybe.’

He stood to look at the wild land beyond the road. After a moment spent assessing the probabilities, he threw the stone away. ‘Probably a deer kicked around here,’ he said as he mounted his pony. ‘A group of riders would have disturbed the ground more.’

Ranulf’s mount continued to stamp and snort as Irvine made to continue up the road. ‘We need to stop soon,’ he said. ‘This pony’s had enough. It needs to rest and graze. Trouble is, the thieves travel when we sleep, and we travel when they sleep.’

‘I guess that’ll change as soon as they leave the track,’ said Irvine. ‘They’ll have no need to hide during the day if they travel through the forest, and it’s my guess that‘s their intention. Where they head for, I’ve no idea, but the forest will hide them, whether they head directly through it or follow its edge.’

‘They’ll reach the forest some time tonight, we’ll reach it tomorrow,’ said Ranulf. ‘We need to be up at first light and find their entry point. I reckon they’ll continue to travel through the day to keep well ahead of us. That’ll tire and slow them. Tomorrow should see us gain ground.’

Irvine took the lead the next morning and carefully scanned the scrub on the forest side of the road looking for signs of disturbance. Sometimes he would dismount and walk a good distance from the path. There, he would stoop and scrutinize any vegetation that grew a distance away.

Ranulf and the other eight followed Irvine’s lead, but scanned the trail
beside
the road. ‘What happens if we don’t find their tracks between here and Camulodunum?’ asked Ranulf. ‘Does that mean they’re sticking to the road?’

Irvine was certain that was not the case. ‘No, that would be madness,’ he said as the sound of riders had them look up the road. He nodded towards approaching riders, ‘… and
that’s
why.’

A returning raiding party of thirty men clattered past them. Irvine and Ranulf gave them a brief acknowledgement.

‘That’s what they’d have to deal with if they kept to the road,’ said Irvine

Ranulf frowned into the brushwood beside the road. ‘But what if we’ve missed their trail?’

Irvine’s tone was matter of fact, ‘In that case we go back empty handed. It’s a big forest. We can’t just go in there and hope we’ll find them, because we won’t.’

By midafternoon, Ranulf was beginning to think the quarter purse Griff had given them would have to do. The forest had been beside them for six hours without any visible signs of entry. He pondered the possibilities. They could well have ridden past and missed the telltale tracks. If that were so, then every step they took was a wasted step. They would continue to Camulodunum. The fugitives
had
to enter the forest between Norwic and Camulodunum. They would turn back and scan the roadside again if they had not seen sign of them by Camulodunum.

He was about to tell Irvine of his strategy when the scout unexpectedly dismounted ahead of him. Kneeling, he picked something up from the ground.

When Ranulf reached him, Irvine was holding a piece of gilt bronze. ‘Didn’t Griff say the Britons were finely dressed?’ he asked.

Ranulf slid from his mount. ‘Yes, their horses, too, had fine trappings according to him.’ He took the gilt bronze from Irvine. ‘This is the cheek piece from a harness. It’s got to be them.’

‘And the good thing is I found it away from the road upon this slab that leads into the forest. We may have had a lucky break. I’ll look beyond here towards the shrubs.’ He walked to a bank of brambles that loomed some sixty paces from the road. When he returned he was smiling. ‘Come, we have enough daylight left to start into the forest. They’ve left a track like an army.’

With the trail easy to read, they made quick progress through the brambles and reached the beech colony long before dark. Here, Irvine examined the ground again. He dusted his hands onto his tunic as he stood up to face Ranulf. ‘Their tracks are fainter but still clear here. By my guess we’re not that far behind them. The bramble and nettles have slowed them down. They did us a favour flattening it for us.’

‘Then we must press our advantage and continue till dark,’ said Ranulf. ‘It seems they travelled both night and day, so they’ll be struggling by now. It would be good to meet them in that condition.’

They reached the bracken outcrop one hour before dusk and Ranulf signalled for his men to halt. Standing in his saddle, he looked out over the green expanse. Irvine did likewise beside him. ‘I have to admit that I struggled to see their tracks in the woods,’ said Ranulf, ‘but even I can see where they’ve gone through the ferns here.’

‘And they’re close,’ said Irvine. ‘I can feel it. They’re probably confident that we failed to spot their exit from the road … after all, they chose the perfect place to leave it, so who can blame them. Were it not for the harness piece they would have escaped, but they’re close now and we need to be ready for them.’

‘After the open woods, this bracken’s a good place for them to spend the night,’ said Ranulf. ‘They’ll be nestled in it, that’s for sure.’ He turned to the men who waited behind him and barked out his orders. ‘You two—Hwita, Tidgar—get down off your ponies. Scout ahead a thousand paces. Keep low and hidden, then one of you get back here and report what you find.’

The two men, Geoguths, low in the pecking order and eager to prove their worth to Ranulf, ran on ahead through the bracken. After travelling their one thousand paces, they found nothing other than trampled tracks. Tidgar—a wiry, acne-infested youth of nineteen—turned to Hwita. ‘I’ll go back to Ranulf and tell him it’s safe to advance,’ he said

Hwita, the older of the two, had assumed the position of leader of the two-man patrol. He nodded authoritatively. ‘Yes … do it, so we may get on with this.’

A little time later, Ranulf and the others joined Hwita.

‘Same again,’ ordered Ranulf, as the ponies stood knee-deep in the bracken. ‘Another thousand paces ahead, then report back.’

As the Geoguths left, Ranulf turned to Irvine. ‘It’s better we catch the Briton’s by surprise,’ he said. ‘We don’t want them waiting for us do we?’

Irvine tapped his nose conspiratorially. ‘Or worse still set get caught up in an ambush. Better they ambush two, rather than the entire group, eh?’

‘As long as Tidgar reports back we know we’re safe,’ said Ranulf. ‘If he or Hwita don’t return, then that will tell its own story.’

Five hundred paces ahead of Ranulf and Irvine, Hwita, who had taken the lead, stopped suddenly. ‘Hush! Someone is ahead … a child by the look of it.’

Tidgar joined him and crammed for a look. ‘It’s a girl,’ he said. ‘By Woden, she’s taking a piss.’

‘Grab her,’ urged Hwita. ‘We must be close to their camp. Grab her and take her back to Ranulf. She’s worth much gold on her own I reckon.’

As Cate stood up, Tidgar grabbed her. Twisting in his grip, her eyes wide with fear, she recoiled from him. He clamped his hand over her mouth and lifted her with his other arm. Her cries stifled and muted, the girl struggled and kicked as Tidgar carried her past Hwita.  ‘Stay here and keep your eyes peeled,’ he puffed. ‘I’ll take her back to Ranulf.’

Irvine was the first to see Tidgar return. He grabbed Ranulf’s arm and smirked. ‘Seems like Tidgar’s caught us a wriggly little fish.’

Tidgar’s air was triumphant as he approached Ranulf. ‘She was squatting, away from her companions … relieving herself. I grabbed her before she had time to think. Hwita is watching up the trail to see what happens next.’

‘What happens next is we rush them before they have time to act,’ barked Ranulf as he dismounted and took the girl from Tidgar. ‘On your pony man—get back there now!’ He looked to his other six riders who waited behind. ‘What are you lot waiting for! Follow Tidgar and ride through their camp. Spare none but the two boys!’

Irvine watched as the riders goaded their ponies through the bracken. ‘Eight of them should be able to manage the task,’ he said assuredly to Ranulf. ‘There are some bruising fighters amongst them.’

‘
Your
job’s done though,’ said Ranulf. ‘Now you need to get back to Norwic with the girl … get her out of the way in case things get complicated here. Who knows? Griff might give even more gold for her speedy return. I’ll catch you up as soon as the men get back with the others.’