Chapter I. A Hero's Death.

Chapter I. A Hero’s Death.

Just Before Dawn, October, Anno Domini 559.

Anticipation was the worst part of battle, Llewin reflected. Especially on a miserable day like this.

It was raining, a soft, misty rain from a sky just going from iron-black to steel-gray, and cold. Llewin leaned against a boulder, hidden from the valley below, trying not to shiver and wondering whether he would ever know warmth again. He thought longingly of the cloak he had left behind at the camp that morning, and cursed himself for a weakling; when the fight came, cloaks would hinder, not help. He strained to see through the gray curtain of rain toward the valley floor, toward the Roman road, trying to keep his mind off the cold. It didn’t work. Where are they?

The road was just to his left, descending in front through the bowl-shaped valley and rising behind into a steep-sided cut through low cliffs. Men waited to either side, a hundred of them, all but one wearing white surcoats identical to Llewin’s. Across the chest of each coat stretched a hand the color of cold iron, and each bore the number XLI high on the left breast. The coat was the uniform of the Iron Hands, the number that of their hundred—what the legions had called a century.

It was a history lesson every Iron Hand received: the legions had been divided into centuries of a hundred men each, and the Iron Hands, who rarely fought in numbers greater than one or two hundred, had adopted the century and changed its name. A captain commanded each hundred, itself composed of three thirties, each commanded by a lieutenant. Each of those was divided into tens, led by sergeants. Lieutenants and captains carried bodyguards or aides to round out the hundred.

Seventy Britons hid behind the rocks between the cliffs and the wide bowl-shaped valley that stretched treeless before them; another thirty, archers taking advantage of the high ground, perched on the cliffs themselves. Waiting. Saxons would pass this way today, raiders, looking to pass through the cut into British lands, to kill and burn and rape, to steal sheep and cattle and slaves as they had since the legions had left Britain more than a century ago. The Iron Hands were there to ambush them, to ensure this band would not raid again.

A raiding band like the one they waited for had brought Llewin to the Iron Hands, or them to him, a little more than a year ago. He had been fifteen. The Saxons had burned his village, had destroyed his family, everyone he knew, and had left him for dead, a bloody heap in the road. The Forty-First Hundred, hunting the raiders, had tracked them to the village, and on finding Llewin alive had picked him up and laid him in a wagon. He had awakened three days later and remained with the hundred since. A jagged half-moon scar, a hoofmark across his forehead, was his only memento of the fight; memories of his murdered family were his only souvenirs from that earlier life.

This day is not about me, he reminded himself, not about my family. Today is about keeping the Saxons out of Britain. He had to tell himself that every time, that he fought Saxons not because his sister’s smile haunted his dreams but because he was sworn to. Every Iron Hand swore, pledged on his own blood to raise arms only against the scourge that threatened to overwhelm their island, Saxons and Angli and Frisians from the east, Picti and Scoti from the north, Irish from the west. And of all those, the Saxons were the worst, they and the Angli; Llewin had never learned how to tell those two apart.

A low sound from somewhere in the valley jerked Llewin from his reverie; he strained to see through the mist. Were they coming? But he could still see nothing, could hear nothing but the soft patter of the rain on his thick leather cap. He looked to his left, to the scout, Timothy, and pitched his voice low: “Did you hear something?”

The older man shook his head, keeping his eyes on the valley.

I should know better than that. I won’t be the first to see them. Or hear them. Where are they?

Patience, he reminded himself. They’ll be here soon enough, and there will be killing to do. Killing enough for all of us.

There was no better place for killing Saxons than here, today, with a hundred Iron Hands led by the Redwing himself, the greatest war leader Britain had seen since Arthur’s death half a century ago. The Redwing had been an Iron Hand himself, had gained fame among them and used it to propel himself to the nobility, and now he would employ none but them. Even the men of his House guard were former Iron Hands. There were no better soldiers in Britain, and if they were expensive, they were also the only mercenaries who could be counted on to put Britain above plunder, who would die fighting rather than turn away for a better offer.

Llewin peered down the line to his left, trying to catch a glimpse of the man. He saw a flash of crimson down toward the center of the line; the knight would be there, his great red-winged helm burnished to a shine for the day’s fight. Llewin wasn’t sure if the helm was the source of his name or the emblem of it—he had never heard of a battle in which the man hadn’t worn it, nor had he heard him called by any other name.

Timothy whistled, a low, lingering sound that pulled Llewin’s attention back to him. He turned his head toward Llewin and gave him a nod and a reassuring wink, his eyes leaving the area in front of them just long enough to make eye contact, and jerked his chin toward the valley floor. Llewin’s heart thudded within his thick oxhide vest, and his breath quickened as he stared toward the valley floor, trying to catch a glimpse of the approaching enemy. He cursed his own cowardice. The men around him showed no sign of nerves. How is it I’m the only one who’s afraid? He breathed deeply, tried to relax his clenched hands, force his face to go smooth, emotionless. My men must not see my fear.

His heart pounded as he searched the thinning mist, willing himself to appear calm. Slowly, gradually, he felt his features flatten, but still he could see nothing. No matter—if Timothy said he had seen them, they were there. It would be soon. He turned to look over his shoulder and ensure his other eight men were alert and paying attention. Each met his gaze, returned his nod. Eric, with his scarred face and Saxon name; round-bellied Jacob, whose skill with a sword often surprised his enemies; Robert, who like Llewin fought with an axe; Charles, the Frank; George, half again as old as the next oldest man but still quick with a smile and a sword; Derrick, the giant, the only man Llewin knew who was bigger than the Redwing; and the twins Garet and Gryffyn, who always seemed to be staring at something no one else could see. And, of course, Timothy.

His men. The possessive still struck him with irony; a month gone, they had all been soldiers together, Sergeant Grant their leader. Now he was dead, and by some joke the others allowed Llewin to believe he was in charge. He even wore the chevron of a sergeant, high on the right breast of his surcoat.

He had come to lead these men by chance and extraordinarily bad luck. The Hundred’s last fight had been unplanned and uncoordinated, two war-bands blundering into each other in the blackness of night. They had heard commotion up ahead in the ranks, had gone still and quiet as stones, senses straining to identify the uproar. And a spear had thrust out of the blackness and caught Sergeant Grant under the chin. Llewin had caught the haft of the spear, Charles had gotten the Saxon with the small throwing-axe he called a francisca, and Llewin’s friend and mentor had gone down, his last breath rattling in his severed throat. After that, the night had erupted into chaos, men screaming and iron clanging in every direction. Llewin had suggested something without thinking, and the others had followed, and he had made other suggestions, and they had followed those. The next day, Captain Jerrodd had promoted him to sergeant and charged him with the leadership of the ten. He hadn’t been able to puzzle why; he had done nothing heroic, just the things he had thought might keep his friends alive.

Two more whistles now, one from across the road and one from the right, said others had spotted the Saxon warband. More whistles followed up and down the line. Llewin strained, peering through the rain, listening for the creak of harness, the stomp of marching feet, anything that might betray their enemy to him.

The bowl of the valley stretched a mile or more to the north, broad and gently sloped and treeless almost to its lip, out of sight now beyond the curtain of rain. East and west the ground sloped up to steep hills. The Roman road ran straight as an arrow through the middle of the bowl and disappeared into the cut through the cliffs. How the Romans had made the cut, or why, mattered not a bit today. What mattered was that it was the only easy way through or over those cliffs for twenty miles in either direction. The Saxons had to pass through the mercenaries’ position to enter British lands.

Llewin’s ten sat just to the east of the road, another ten, led by Sergeant Peter, just on the other side. That ten had the unenviable job of holding the open road when the fighting got to the rocks. The thirty archers on the cliff had two tasks: first, they would pour their volleys into the approaching Saxons; second, if the barbarians threatened to overwhelm the hundred, they would cover the retreat by dumping the tons of rocks they had piled on the edges of the cut. The long, gentle slope up to the cut had been strewn with rocks as well; the Iron Hands had been busy for two days making this position as formidable as it could be made. The rocks would trip feet and turn ankles, breaking up the lines of any force that tried to charge the position. A good position and a simple plan—the Redwing believed simple plans were best.

After a moment that seemed an age, he heard a slight creak, a harness, perhaps, or a belt, out in front of him. More sounds followed, and a long heartbeat later he finally saw them: two hundred yards away, the Saxons milled slowly up the road, a disorganized mass ambling toward him, four mounted banners in front. He thought to count them, gave up when he saw the banners. Those said this was no mere raiding party. Two hundred men would have been an easy mark for a full hundred of Iron Hands attacking from ambush; four banners meant the hundred faced near six hundred men. An army of invasion. Llewin’s pulse quickened.

It was an effort to make his face smooth again. Retreat crossed his mind, briefly, but the Redwing would never permit it. To the contrary: the numbers made it imperative they stop the Saxons here. To allow this army to enter Britain would be to invite disaster.

Seconds later, Lieutenant Roland materialized out of the mist behind him. He spoke softly and quickly. “We attack as planned. Wait for the archers.” Then he was gone.

Llewin did not turn his head from watching the enemy approach, merely nodding his understanding. How does he do that? The man was almost as adept at moving undetected as Timothy. He turned to the latter and nodded once, hoping the scout couldn’t see his nerves, then made another round of his men, making eye contact and exchanging nods. Not one of them showed the fear Llewin felt. Why am I the one in charge here?

He studied the advancing banners: a white boar’s head on green, a black serpent on red, a red hawk on black, and a square pattern of four linked blue diamonds, also on black. The hawk and the diamonds he had seen before; all were banners he would have expected to see at the head of a Saxon warband.

The Saxons had closed the distance to one hundred yards. They streamed slowly toward the twin stones, planted on either side of the road and painted with a white circle on this side, that marked fifty yards from the Iron Hands’ position. The archers would loose their first volley when the Saxons reached those stones.

He ticked off the distance in his head. Eighty yards. Seventy. Sixty. He eased his axe from its loop on his belt, heard the whisper of steel and wood on leather around him as other men readied their weapons. Fifty yards. The banners passed the stones. A Saxon squinted toward the clifftops, turned his head to shout a warning, but the shout was drowned in the twang of thirty bowstrings, and the mass of barbarians erupted in chaos as thirty arrows found their targets. Men screamed in confusion and pain as steel tore into flesh, screamed as they fell before a curtain of feathered death as the second volley ripped into them, the third already on its way.

Three volleys; time to move. The rhythm of the bowstrings changed to a steady ripple as each man began to draw and loose at his own pace. Llewin felt the line to either side of him surge forward as he left his hiding place in the rocks, adding his voice to a wordless roar as the flood of white-coated Britons poured down the slope in a loose double line. Arrows whistled over their heads, aimed at the rear of the Saxon mass now, keeping them off balance as the Iron Hands tore into their front and flanks at a fast jog.

Llewin chose a target in the second before impact, a baby-faced Saxon who hadn’t even thought to lower his spear, terror stark in his eyes. Too late, the boy tried to bring his weapon to bear; the heavy blade of the axe tore into the barbarian’s face as the world erupted in noise and blood. Men screamed, metal clashed, the clang of iron, the ring of steel. Wood cracked against wood as shields splintered, and more than once Llewin heard a wet crunch as wood or iron tore into bone. Men screamed, screams of rage, of frustration, of pain, screams cut off abruptly as throats or chests or guts were ripped open. Every man screamed, to frighten his enemies, to give vent to his rage, to remind himself that he was still alive.

The numbers made no difference in the initial onslaught; no force could have stood long against such an attack. Moments after the first volley of arrows, Llewin heard men shouting the command: “Fall back! Back to the rocks!” and he realized he could see only Saxon backs. His enemies had untangled themselves and were retreating beyond bowshot. He looked for his men, echoed the call as he panted for breath: “Back to the rocks!” The Britons made haste to return to their positions. Now the hard part would begin.

Panting, blood still pounding in his ears, Llewin took a few seconds to make a hasty assessment of his ten. None seemed seriously injured, though Robert was limping slightly. His own surcoat was stained red in half a dozen places, but he was uninjured; none of the blood was his. He noticed for the first time that the rain had stopped falling sometime during the ambush, although the heavy clouds had not thinned. He looked out to where the Saxons had been; for them the story was much grimmer.

As many as a hundred vaguely man-shaped mounds lay out there, some silent and still, some writhing in agony, a few thrashing about and wailing, blind and deaf now to everything but pain. Three of the bodies on that field wore white surcoats. A fair trade most days, but today the Iron Hands must charge a heavy price for every man lost—and they would not do nearly so well again, with surprise lost and their enemy over his shock and howling for blood.

He could see them now, safely out of bowshot, forming lines for the attack now just moments away. Their war cries carried across the space between the two bands, making the hair on the back of Llewin’s neck rise. He forced his breathing to slow, willed his heart to stop pounding—he needed to be calm when the onslaught came. He had never faced odds like this: a hundred down already, and the barbarians still outnumbered the mercenaries by more than five to one.

The war-drums began to pound as the Saxons started forward at a fast walk. The drums had one purpose: their thunder was fear to the Saxons’ enemies. Llewin’s gut twisted into knots at the sound, and he shut his eyes, willed his knotted muscles to relax. I must not fear. None of my men are afraid; I will not show myself a coward in front of them!

The Saxons broke into a jog as they came within range of the archers, and again thirty bowstrings thrummed in unison. The charge seemed to take forever; a hundred yards, then fifty, and the archers began to pick individual targets. The barbarians broke into a canter as they reached the upslope, and men began to trip and turn ankles on the rocks. It made no difference to Llewin’s eyes; the tide of enemies seemed to slip around their own fallen as a river slips around a handful of pebbles.

Finally the tide reached the Britons’ lines. A yellow-haired barbarian rushed at Llewin with axe upraised; Llewin vaguely noted the surprise on the man’s face as he stepped into the blow, throwing off the other man’s timing, delivering his own full-armed swing to the spot where the ribs met. The axe did what it was made to do, finally coming to rest in the man’s backbone, and he simply folded around it. Llewin didn’t even try to withdraw his own weapon; it would stick after that blow, and the heat of battle was no time to try to wrestle it free. Instead he simply plucked the Saxon’s axe out of his hands as he fell and used the haft to deflect a spear thrust at his belly, rushing up the shaft to smash the axe handle into a snarling face. And the world was blood and howling noise again.

Finally the noise subsided and the Saxons withdrew again, leaving perhaps another forty littering the slope and the space before the rocks. Twenty or so more limped or hobbled after their comrades. But there were fully a dozen white-clad bodies on the slope, five of them on the road just to his left. Sergeant Peter had paid a heavy price to hold the open roadway.

He was moving among his men, had satisfied himself none was injured when a shout went up from the left. He looked toward the sound and raised his own voice in a high-spirited cheer. Down the line toward them rode the Redwing on one of the Saxon horses, waving the banner its rider had borne so the sodden fabric would unfurl: it was the scarlet banner, the one with the black serpent. The great knight stopped just in front of Llewin and faced the raiders, waving the flag so they would be sure to see it. Then he was gone again, riding back to his place in the line to prepare for the next attack.

Llewin let his cheer die while other men shouted around him. Had he seen a grimace of pain on the Redwing’s face? Surely he had imagined it, and the blood dripping bright red from the knight’s left elbow? He dropped his gaze to the sodden ground, where two spots of bright crimson spread and faded into the rust-colored clay, gone so quickly he might have dreamed them. He looked up in the direction the knight had ridden, and his eyes met Timothy’s. Something in the scout’s eyes caught Llewin’s attention. He had seen it, too.

Panic rose in Llewin’s throat. How could they survive if the Redwing were killed? He crushed the thought, concentrating instead on reordering his ten. He moved Robert and Derrick to his left flank, to help Peter hold the road when the next attack came. The rest he left roughly where they were, spreading them out to fill the gaps left by the shift, and they settled back down to wait for their enemies to return.

Moments later the Saxons charged again, rushing up the slope in two tight lines, shields overlapped to form a wall, stronger by two or three times on the flanks than in the center. A smart one, this Saxon commander, Llewin thought. He can’t take us in a rush, so he tries to overwhelm us on the flanks. He noted without really thinking about it that his heart wasn’t pounding. The storm of arrows was lighter this time; he guessed the archers had expended half their arrows, and the shield wall forced them to choose their targets carefully. He had just time to look to his right and shout “Charles! Watch the flank!” before the barbarians were upon them again.

The rocks had forced the shield wall apart, but the Saxons came in as good order as they could manage. From where Llewin stood, it wasn’t enough. He heard a mighty roar from his left; Derrick, shattering shields and arms and heads with his great club. A red-bearded Saxon thrust a spear between the rocks at Llewin’s throat, and he threw himself into the fight again. This time it was over much more quickly; in just a few furious heartbeats there were no Saxons standing to their front. Even before he could lower his axe, though Charles’s warning shout pulled his attention to the right, where fifteen Iron Hands struggled to hold back ten times their number of bearded Saxons.

“Come on!” Llewin called, and plunged forward out of the sheltering rocks, wheeling to the right. In two strides the men were at a full charge, and they smashed into the Saxons’ flank with the fury of men who had nothing to lose.

The onslaught was more than the heathens could bear; a few moments’ furious fighting left them in headlong retreat. Llewin looked around, shocked to realize that all of his men were still standing. He nodded once to the lone sergeant remaining on the flank, nodded again to Lieutenant Roland when he realized he had also been among the fifteen, and led his men back toward their position. Only then did he realize the left end of the line was still alive with the sounds of battle, which briefly rose tenfold as the Britons surged forward to push the savages back. The pressure forced the Saxons away and they retreated to rejoin their shaken comrades.

From the corner of his eye he saw Lieutenant Roland dart toward the other end of the line, where Captain Jerrodd and the Redwing had positioned themselves. He wondered where the older man got the energy; Llewin’s own muscles seemed made of mud, and he would have gladly sunk to the ground where he was. He leaned against a tall boulder, offered up a silent thanks to God for preserving them, looked out toward the still-formidable enemy host and wondered how much longer their luck would last.

“Sergeant Llewin.” Lieutenant Roland’s voice.

Llewin turned toward his lieutenant’s voice and realized that Captain Jerrod was with him. The men’s faces were grim. Surely this isn’t about leaving our position? He stepped before them and stood as stiffly straight as he could.

“Sergeant, how many men do you have left?” the Captain asked briskly.

“All of them, Sir. One man has a twisted knee, but it’s not serious.”

“I need you to do something for me. For Britain. It won’t be easy.”

“We’re ready, Sir. What do you need us to do?”

The captain paused for a long moment before answering. “Carry the Redwing’s body back to his home. The enemy must not be allowed to have it.”

Llewin felt dizzy. He didn’t just say that. The Redwing has not been killed! “Say that again, Sir?”

“The Redwing is dead, Sergeant. That surge was not some brilliant stroke to drive the Saxons off; it was every man pushing forward to destroy the one who struck him down. I need you and your ten to take him to his home, to keep him from Saxon hands.” The older man fixed his eyes with a determined stare. “There is no time for discussion. The rest of us will stay here to cover you and keep the Saxons out.”

Llewin opened his mouth to ask a question, but no words came. He closed it again and nodded weakly. “Aye, Sir,” he finally found the strength to say. So we live, we run, and our friends die so we can get away. He could not imagine living with the shame.

The captain turned and began to walk away, clearly intending Llewin to follow. He turned to Timothy, said “get everybody inside the cut,” and hurried after, motioning to Derrick as he went.

“Sir—why us?” he asked when he caught up to the Captain.

The older man didn’t turn his head. “Because yours is the only ten that is still whole. And you have the giant. And because you are the—the youngest leader I have. You have the best chance of success.”

What was he about to say? Llewin wondered. Why does he really want me gone? He kept his mouth shut; the commander had made up his mind.

The Redwing lay as if asleep, his face pale, his chest unmoving. The death wound was concealed under his left arm, but Llewin had seen enough dead men to know this was not sleep. Quickly he gathered up the knight’s effects, his helm, his great sword, and the golden torc from around his neck while Derrick picked him up and laid him across his wide shoulders. Without a word they moved back toward the cut as the drums began pounding again.

Llewin explained the new plan to the others. They all nodded, stone-faced, as the surviving Iron Hands began forming a wall of men ten feet inside the mouth of the cut. The wall would slow the charge, giving ground inch by inch, as the narrowness of the cut, and the archers above, evened the numbers. It could not change the outcome.

Llewin looked back to find Captain Jerrod staring at him. The officer hurriedly lifted his sword in front of his face in salute, then turned away before Llewin could return the gesture. He stared for a moment, then pulled his gaze away, motioned his men to follow, and set off at a jog up the cut toward the Redwing’s distant home. The din of battle rose again behind them, metal clashing, men screaming, their friends dying.

He looked at the giant. “How long can you carry him like this?”

“As long as you need me to, Llewin.”

They heard the first crash of rocks shortly after they cleared the cut. The sound, and his friends’ screams, burned like a brand into Llewin’s mind as he ran.