Wolfbane (Historical Fiction Action Adventure Book, set in Dark Age post Roman Britain) (53 page)

‘It’s an honour indeed to be summoned to the lord’s hall to offer our counsel,’ Robert had said.

‘Aye he’s been troubled since the tragedy at the village,’ said Simon. ‘This will have something to do with that, mark my words.’

As they entered the hall with the rest of Robert’s workers, Arthur and Gherwan, as well as Tomas and Will, already awaited them. Once seated, and without preamble, Arthur put forward his plan to rebuild the village.

Simon looked at Robert and nodded sagely, as if to say,
I told you it was about the village, now we’re going to be busy.

‘Nothing of what I’ve just told you will have come as a surprise,’ said Arthur, after he had allowed them a brief period to absorb his news. ‘What I am about to say now, however, will.’

All were attentive as Arthur gave quick glances at Gherwan, Will and Tomas, who were already aware of Arthur’s intentions. Gherwan, stern and taciturn, gave Arthur a hardly perceptible nod of encouragement to continue. ‘The rebuild is to be superficial—the thinnest of timber used to construct the palisade fence, and the village structures themselves left empty of furnishings,’ said Arthur.

Frowning, Robert and Simon looked at each other, baffled as to why Arthur would want them to build in such a way.

‘A thin fence would offer scant protection and soon fall foul of the elements, my lord,’ said Robert. ’Would it not make sense to build something that would last a lifetime, rather than a few years at most?’

‘It need not last a lifetime,’ replied Arthur, ‘…merely a few weeks, for I intend to burn the village down.’

For the first time in his life, Robert thought Arthur, his lord, might have allowed past events to affect him, even unhinged him, but before he could speculate further, Arthur continued. ’The Saxon, Ranulf, and his band of murderers, will come back, we can be sure of that, and when they do I have no intention of chasing them around the fields until they scatter and return alive to Norwic as is their want when outnumbered.’

Arthur banged the table in emphasis. ‘No! … I want them in one place, and that place is the village you will build for me. There they will die the death they saw befitting for my people. There they will burn, and in doing so the Gods will be appeased. Better still, I will not lose a single man to them in conflict.’

A moments silence ensued before Robert felt compelled to respond. He felt slightly ashamed for doubting Arthur, but could see a flaw in the plan. ‘If I may …,’ he started. ‘The idea is a good one, but the problem I can see is how to get Ranulf and his men into the compound, and once inside how do we keep them there?’

Arthur’s nod suggested he had been expecting the question.  ‘First, we’ll lure him inside the village, then we’ll stop him from getting out,’ he explained. ‘Yes,’ he emphasised, as Robert’s expression turned from puzzlement to dawning awareness, ‘you will build gates that can be secured from the outside also.’

‘And how will you get him to enter the village?’ asked Simon, himself utterly intrigued by Arthur’s scheme.

Arthur looked over to Will, inviting his input.

Will said, ‘I leave with Tomas after this meeting, and we’ll seek out Ranulf and his men. Then we’ll follow them and track their progress. Once they are near enough to our lands and we feel they are ready to raid, I’ll return and inform Arthur.’

‘And Tomas?’ asked Simon.

Arthur took over now. ‘If I may, Will.’ He looked intently at Simon, knowing he and Tomas had gone suffered much before coming to Brythonfort. ‘Tomas will allow himself to be captured, and then lead them to the village.’

Simon was not happy. ‘And what if the fiend decides to kill him? How can you know how Ranulf will react when he finds out he has been under scrutiny from Tomas?’

‘We do not know,’ said Arthur,’ but Tomas assures me, he knows how to handle Saxon despots, having had much practice in the art.’

Simon looked at Tomas. ‘And are you happy with this, lad?’

‘Happy enough,’ said Tomas, not wanting to distress Simon further. ‘It was my idea. I put myself forward for this. If I can survive two years under Egbert, I’m sure I can last long enough to get this done. I’ll make myself more useful to them alive than dead. That’s how you survive with these people.’

‘And what did Dominic say of this,’ asked Simon, knowing as he did, the close bond between Tomas and Dominic.

‘He was only at Brythonfort for two days before he continued to the west in his quest for the children, so luckily for me he didn’t have more time to persuade me not to do it. Before he left, though, he gave me his advice as usual.’ Thomas smiled. ‘Told me he had confidence in me, but to take the utmost care.’

‘And so you should,’ said Simon, deeply worried, as the meeting drew to its conclusion.

Two days before Ranulf’s entrapment in the compound, Will had gone to Arthur with his briefing, leaving Tomas to play his part with Ranulf. After delivering the news, Will immediately left and returned to watch Ranulf’s group again.

Arthur had gone to within two miles of the village, where he had met with Flint, Govan, and forty other men, women and children. Dressed as peasants, their aim was to present an image of a rural community to Ranulf and his plunderers. All the men were archers; the women and children volunteers. Knowing they had only a day at the most to prepare, they had then moved into the village.

All the huts within the compound had already been filled to the roof with tinder-dry straw. Robert, the artisan, had practiced at Brythonfort until he had found the optimum density at which to pack the straw. Too loose and it burned out to quickly … too dense and it would not ignite.

Before dawn the next day, Will had returned. Having shadowed Irvine throughout the night, he knew the man had reached the village and hidden in the copse. Will had then entered the village through the small, disguised gate at the back of the compound. Once inside he imparted his information to Arthur.

The next morning, knowing that Irvine was watching the village, Arthur and Flint, who were dressed convincingly as peasants, opened the gates of the compound. Shortly after, they left for the fields with the rest of the village occupants, leaving Govan behind as a safeguard.

Govan, who knew that Irvine was watching the village, had had to think quickly when Irvine had actually approached him, acting the dispossessed peasant. He guessed the reason for the man’s audacity and decided to show him around the village, keeping him away from the windowless, straw-stuffed huts.

After giving him his tour, Govan had furtively watched as Irvine had left him and returned to the copse to continue his observation.

Just before dusk, Arthur and the others had arrived back from the fields, secured the gates behind them, and waited for Ranulf’s approach. When the first knock on the gates had come from Tomas, everyone inside the compound had left by the back gate— everyone except Arthur and Flint. After wisely ignoring Tomas’ first request for entry, they had acted upon hearing the second summons and opened the gates.

Alongside Flint, Arthur had sprinted across the compound and had gained half the distance to the hidden, back gate before Ranulf had pushed the main gates open. Whilst Ranulf and his men were still getting their bearings within the village, Arthur and Flint had stood outside having gone through and locked the small back gate.

Now, as he lay beside the main gates,
Tomas was unceremoniously grabbed, then hoisted to his feet. Thankfully, the shadows before him were familiar. ‘Dominic, Withred,’ he whispered joyously. ‘What a sight you are after these past two days.’

Suddenly he remembered he had to shut the gates. Luckily, Withred was on to it and quickly dragged them together. Dominic picked up one end of the heavy securing beam. ‘Get the other end, Tom,’ he urged, ‘or else they’ll be back out.’

Together they lifted the beam and dropped it into the hasps. Dominic gave Tomas a brief hug and patted his back. ‘Good to see you, lad, and what a hero you are after what I’ve heard.’ He looked to the compound and pointed above it. ‘Now you can watch the sky light up for your reward.’

‘You two are not supposed to be
here
,’ said Tomas, as he embraced Withred who had come to him.

‘No. We finished our little trip to Hibernia, and then we were supposed to rest, according to Arthur,’ said Withred. ‘But how could we miss this.’

Tomas was about to ask Withred about Hibernia when the first two fire arrows flew from the back of the compound.

Fifty strides from the palisade, the brazier burned with a bright yellow fire. A pile of fire arrows, half the height of a man, their points wrapped in fat-soaked hemp, lay near to the brazier. Arthur and his archers lined up and waited their turn to light their arrows from the flame. 

They allowed Flint and Govan to the front. They were to send over the first arrows. Stern faced, they pulled back and released. ‘From Bran and Mule,’ they muttered as the arrows flew in an incandescent arc over the palisade.

Ranulf’s face was a mixture of rage and panic as more fire arrows soared over the palisade. ‘How could I have trusted that little British piece of pig shit. GODS!’ he raged, as Tomas’ treachery dawned upon him.

Instinctively, he looked towards the gates just as an arrow found the thatched roof of a nearby hut. Loosely thatched, the roof immediately ignited and fell into the straw-packed room below.

Ranulf and Irvine held up their arms against the heat as they ran past the burning hut. Upon reaching the gates, they pulled back on the empty hasps that had previously housed the securing beam. The gates gave slightly but solidly resisted their pull.

As he looked with disbelief at the gates, Irvine’s back felt as if he walked shirtless on the hottest of summer days. He turned to look at the inner compound—his eyes shot with flame, incredulity and sheer terror, as more of the huts caught fire before him
.
He watched as the men ran panic-stricken between the burning huts, desperate to escape the searing heat but having nowhere to go. Ranulf, meanwhile, had resorted to pushing and growling at the gates.

Outside, Arthur had instructed his men to avoid lighting the fence itself, but many huts stood twenty paces from it, and these now blazed keeping the men away from the perimeter.

As the first awful scream sounded, Ranulf looked wildly around. Running towards him—his arms batting wildly against his body—ran Seward.

Ranulf moved to one side as his man crashed into the gates, then fell to the floor where he wriggled and twisted as if a soul damned to eternal suffering. Irvine looked with disbelief at him. He looked at Ranulf, his haunted stare asking,
why doesn’t he die?

Ranulf looked absently at his tunic sleeve. It had started to steam, such was the intensity of the heat now radiating within the compound. He looked back to Irvine and saw that he too was steaming. He watched with horrid fascination as Irvine’s hair began to frizzle and contract into his scalp.

Stifling a desperate, mad giggle, Ranulf opened his mouth to inform Irvine of his ruined hair. As he inhaled, he sucked scorching air into his lungs. Gagging and coughing now, he clutched his throat, just as one of the huts went up with a loud ‘whoomp.’

As Irvine fell to his knees, now shrieking and alight, Ranulf took off in a desperate, pointless run as a shower of orange sparks drifted down around him. Thick, grey smoke now swirled around the compound, agitated by the convection currents created by the blazing fires. Seeking relief from the heat that engulfed him, Ranul
f
cast aside his helmet—too hot, now, even to touch.

The stench of scorching meat caused Ranulf to gag, just as the tunic that underlay his chainmail hauberk ignited. He noticed, with an almost morbid fascination, how the fabric burned beneath the chainmail; almost like a fire behind a grate.

As the tunic burned itself out, Ranulf felt the skin on his torso tighten, then split. His ensuing howls and screams sucked yet more blistering hot air into his lungs, further compounding his torment. He slumped to his knees as his own hair began to combust, and like Seward, he fell to the ground; his body going into an orgasm of agony.

He was not the first to die, nor was he the last. Later, as the fires finally began to abate and die down, all seventy of his force lay charred and dead on the seared floor of the compound.

As the blaze had taken hold, Arthur and his men (the women and children having returned to Brythonfort in the ox carts long before the arrows had started to fly) retreated away from the heat. Here they waited—their need to add to the flames no longer necessary.

As they sat in a stubbly field, their arms resting lightly on their splayed knees as if they were awaiting the sunrise, Dominic, Withred and Tomas sauntered towards them.

His shadow backlit by the burning compound, Dominic sat on his haunches before Arthur. ‘That couldn’t have gone better,’ he said. ‘Word will get back to them, it always does, and it’ll make them think again before coming out here.’

‘
What
are you two doing here?’ asked Arthur, slightly exasperated, yet glad as ever to see Dominic and Withred.

‘Thought we’d look out for Tom,’ said Dominic, jerking his thumb back over his shoulder to where the lad stood with Withred. ‘At least we left Murdoc back at Brythonfort as you wished.’