Saxon Bane (24 page)

I rolled away and Saxon Slayer sent sparks from the rock it struck. I jumped to my feet and took out my sword. I knew that he was a good swordsman; Pol had told me that.  He was also quicker than I was.  The only things in my favour were my experience and right.  He held Saxon Slayer but he had no right to it.  I had to believe that the spirits were on my side and I would prevail. I held my seax in my left hand to parry the sword.

As luck would have it we were both on the same level. “I take it that it was you who poisoned the water and killed my love?” I nodded.  He grinned and it was an evil grin full of malevolence and cruelty. “And you will die slowly for I have coated Saxon Slayer in Wolf’s Bane.  You will die as your father did. A fitting end for a wolf.  I shall take the lion as my symbol for that is more regal.” He slipped his own seax into his left hand.

“It seems to me that a dog would be more appropriate. You turned on your own family.  What would your father think?”

He feinted with Saxon Slayer and there was a blur of metal.  I barely parried the sword but his seax gouged a red line in my arm. I was too accustomed to fighting in mail.

“My father was a fool! He could have ruled Mona and been king.  It is the richest part of Gwynedd but he would not.  I begged him but he said that his brother was Warlord and that was enough! Well it was not enough for me! I was born to be king.  My mother was a princess! She was heir to Elmet! If my father had not been a weak warrior then we would have stayed in Elmet and fought for our land.  I would be King of Elmet and it would be I who conquered Northumbria!”

He came at me again but I was ready for the sudden burst of flying blades. I countered Saxon Slayer with my seax and pushed hard with my own sword. As our faces closed I saw the poison glistening on the edge of Saxon Slayer.  It was an uncia away from my hand and death. He grinned. “It is a deadly poison.  I watched it make uncle look like a baby. When you are cut I will watch you die slowly!”

He swung again with the sword and this time, when I met it with the Saxon seax, the poorly made blade shattered in two.  I leapt backwards as he crowed for joy. “Now what will you do?”

I slipped my hand down and took the dagger my father had given to me at Yule. I felt a surge of power as I held it. The blue stones were magical; they came from deep within the mountains of home. I felt more confident. I used my experience.  I was going to head butt him. However I risked catching the poisoned blade and so I put my right foot between his and punched at his face with my sword. He fell backwards and rolled down the hill. The wound on my left arm was bleeding so much that it was making the hilt of the dagger slippery.  My evil cousin was winning.

I could see his confidence as he advanced towards me, “Resorting to dirty tricks eh? Not like the behaviour of a warlord is it?”

“But stabbing your uncle in the back is?”

I could see that the barb had struck home. “It was his own fault.  He should have made himself king!”

I looked in his eyes and saw pure naked ambition. “And this still would not have saved my father would it? He would still have died, and Gawan and me?”

He cocked his head to one side, “Probably.  You are too weak. All of you are weak. I am the only one strong enough to rule.”

“And what of you and your weakness?  You gave in to Oswald and Oswiu too quickly.”

“Ah that is where you are wrong. They were going to make me king of Rheged and Morgause would have been my queen.  When we two had power then we would have used the cult of the mother to destroy Oswald and Oswiu and we would have taken over the kingdom of Northumbria. Did you know that Edwin is converting to Christianity?” I saw his eyes flick towards my sword.

As I expected he attacked again in a flurry of quickly moving blows. All he needed to do was to break my skin with the poisoned sword and I would die. He had, however, made the mistake of being below me so that I could jump up the hill away from his blows. He fell to his face on the ground. He expected me to strike while he lay prone and he rolled away to the side.

As he got to his feet I darted in with my dagger and scored a long cut on the back of his left hand with is razor sharp edge.  “I think we are even now, cousin.”

“We will not be even until you have lost your love as I lost Morgause.”

“Morgause?  Your love?  She was a witch and a whore!”

My insult was deliberate.  I wanted the blood pumping around his veins and out of his hand. “You lie!” This time I did not meet Saxon Slayer with my seax but instead I swung my sword with the whole weight of my body behind it. I swung from over my left shoulder and he held up Saxon Slayer to parry the blow. I drove Saxon Slayer towards him and he watched in horror as the side of the blade touched the wound on his left hand.

I sprang back.  “What was that you said about Wolf’s Bane?  That it just needed to touch a wound and a man would die?  How are your legs, cousin? How is your heart?  Do your eyes still see?”

He tried to lurch towards me to strike once more but it was as though someone had pulled his legs from beneath him.  He collapsed to his knees.  The deadly blade was still held in his hand and he looked at it in horror.

“You will soon be with your witch in the underworld.  You will not see Lord Lann for he will be in Mag Mell and you will not.  You will suffer torment for all eternity while your father will try to understand why you gave in to the dark side of your character.”

“End my torment now, cousin, I beg of you.”

“Do you think me a fool? The moment I close with you then you will strike with the poisoned blade! The poison must have reached your mind already!”

His eyes flashed anger, “I will take you with me!”

He tried a sweep with the sword but he fell on his face and the sword flew from his hand.  It stuck between two stones and the hilt vibrated. Strangely it sounded as though it was singing.

I stared at his dying eyes. “You will not take me with you for when I die I shall go to the Otherworld, I shall go to Mag Mell.”

I walked over to the sword and watched the poison dripping, still, from it.  Tuanthal and a handful of men raced up with weapons drawn. “Warlord, are you hurt?”

They saw the blood puddling from my hand. “It is nothing but Morcar here has caused his own death. His eyes were still open but he could not speak. I walked over to Saxon Slayer and I drew it from the stone. It seemed to scream as it came from between the rocks. I wiped the blade on the grass and then raised it.

“I name this sword Caledfwlch.  Saxon Slayer was the name my father gave the weapon.  I have drawn the sword from the stone and it told me its name. The sword from the stone!”

The last thing Morcar saw, before his eyes closed and he died, was the sword. He had died by the sword, Caledfwlch.  He had died by his own hand and that told me the sword was alive. It would not suffer to be used by those with evil in their hearts.

We left Morcar’s body for the birds and the foxes. We trudged slowly down the mountain.  I was weary. I had taken no pleasure in witnessing the death of my cousin.  I remembered him as a child when we played at the Yule gatherings.  I could not believe how much he had changed.   I would give my children closer attention now. I would watch for those signs which would tell me they were becoming like Morcar and I would stop them.

As we descended Tuanthal asked, “Why did you rename the sword?  Saxon Slayer was a renowned blade.”

“Aye it was, but when my father found it he did not know its name. He named it for himself.  The name has a history.  It would have been named before.” I told them of the combat and how the sword had stuck in the stone.  I shrugged, “The name seemed to come to me. I will live with the name, for good or ill.”

By the time we reached the devastated village it was almost night time.  The Northumbrians who had survived were chained together and the few slaves we had freed were made comfortable.  The bodies of the dead were burned and we set a watch.  No-one had seen any more Northumbrians and the freed slaves told us that we had accounted for them all. However I took no chances.

I woke early and rose.  Tuanthal stirred but I told him to rest. The guards at the gate let me out and I wandered down to the beach. I had much to think on. Since the murder of my father I had had no time to think. I had just had to react to what was happening.  Now that the sword had been safely recovered I had time to reflect.

I walked to the water and laid the sword in the salty sea. I wanted every particle of poison washing off. When I took it from the water I rubbed it in the sand and then thoroughly dried it on my tunic.  I felt better.  The sword felt clean.

Thanks to my father we had won. Rheged was free. However we had paid a high cost. Not only my father but also Aedh and many other irreplaceable men had been lost. I needed to use the warriors and leaders that we had already. Northumbria was huge.  It was far bigger than Mercia. Who would rule there?  Should I leave The Narrows and take my family north to rule our old lands? Morcar would have done so but would my father have done that? I needed to hear Gawan’s words.  Myrddyn was correct; we were two halves of my father.  I was not my father and I would need to do things my way but Gawan would be the voice which would show me the right way.

I saw the sun begin to rise over the sea to the east. It was a new day and I was decided. We would bury my father in the tomb which Myrddyn had built in the mountain.  I would return to the east and end the war then, and only then, would we be able to sit around my father’s war table and talk of the future and peace.

Appropriately, having made a decision, I saw a sail in the distance and knew that it would be Daffydd ap Gwynfor. We would be able to leave Manau.  We could take the second Saxon ship to enable us to travel more comfortably.  As I walked back into the village, now coming alive, I looked up at the whale mountain.  Gawan’s dream had come true.  There was, however, nothing to keep us on this island. When we left it would revert to the wild and empty place we had always had as a neighbour.

“Tuanthal, get a crew for the Saxon ship and begin to load her. It looks like Daffydd has returned.”

“Aye Warlord.” He gestured to the village.  “Do we burn this before we leave?”

“No, let us leave it.  We do not want the island but there may be others who wish to live here. They will, at least, have a roof and walls to protect them.”

By the time Daffydd had tied up we were ready to leave.  My captain looked tired. I daresay he had had little sleep in his pursuit of the brothers. His face looked drawn and serious.

“Warlord we followed the Saxons to the estuary of the Lune.”

I nodded and pointed up at the mountain.  “I saw you both heading there from the peak of the mountain.”

“Aye but what you did not see was the fleet of ships which were anchored in the river.  The brothers have raised an army.  There were many Saxon and Hibernian ships anchored there.  I was lucky to escape undamaged. We should leave quickly before they return here.”

“They will not be coming here.” Now I knew why the brothers had sailed out while we watched.  Now I knew why they had taken Morcar with them.   They had been recruiting others to their cause and using the allure of the famous sword as bait. Once they had paraded him they did not need him any longer. They had not been searching for us when the ships had left.  They were meeting with the other ships and chiefs. They had their own alliance. Oswald wanted his throne back. We had done the hard part for him.  We had weakened King Edwin to the point of defeat. My dreams of a conquered Rheged had lasted hours.

“Warlord?”

“Sorry Daffydd.  You have done well and my mind was elsewhere. When the ship is loaded we sail home.  Let us bury the Warlord and then face these brothers again.”

It was not a speedy voyage but we all had much to reflect upon. Aedh’s body had been placed at the prow and I stood with Tuanthal as we headed south east. “The two of us were both boy riders for your father.  I too had been a scout. I always wanted to be the horseman and ride to battle.  Aedh never grew out of being a scout. He loved the freedom.  He was a fine warrior and would have made an equite but he chose to go into the most dangerous of places.”

“My father thought highly of both of you. He knew that he could rely upon you.” I shook my head. “I was too full of the lure of the east and the armoured horsemen. I neglected what was best about Rheged.”

“We could not have won without your equites, Warlord.”

“I know but I will now be as my father was. I will command the armies.  Pol and Lann Aelle can command my heavy warriors.  I need to see the bigger picture.”

“Then you are becoming your father. When we left Castle Perilous in the north he had to change. When he had commanded that lonely outpost with Garth, Aedh and me, he had been happy.  When he was given command of the army of Rheged he had to change.  Change can be hard, Warlord, but through change comes growth.”

I laughed, “Why, Tuanthal, you have become quite the philosopher.  You would fit in well in Constantinopolis. There they sit and talk just as you just did.”

“I am a warrior and that is all.” He looked at the darkening sky. “It will soon be winter and then another year will have passed.  How many more will I see, I wonder.”

I knew why he reflected upon death.  He was going to the funeral of the last two of those he had grown up with.  There was just my uncle Aelle left from the old days. It was the end of an era.

When we reached home we were greeted by Myrddyn and Myfanwy. Their eyes were drawn to the sword which still lay, without a scabbard, in my belt.  My step mother hugged me.  “My heart was in my mouth when you stepped from your ship for you looked so much like your father.  I thought he had returned from beyond the grave.”

I could say nothing to that.  It was, perhaps, one of the kindest things she could say but I knew that she had meant it. Myrddyn smiled.  “That is why the Warlord will never truly die for he is there in Hogan Lann and in Gawan.”

“Where is my little brother?”

“He and Brother Oswald are preparing the funeral.  We only waited for you.”

I turned as Aedh’s body was removed from the ship. “And we have another captain to bury.  Aedh fell.”

Myfanwy’s hand went to her mouth. “Not Aedh too?” It was as though naming him made her remember Morcar. “And your father’s murderer?”

“Morcar is dead.” She nodded and, as we walked up to the fort I told her of his death.

Myrddyn seemed satisfied.  “
Wyrd
.  That sword has powers far more ancient than even the Romans.  We discovered much about it in Constantinopolis but I can see that there is more to it and it lives still. The sword killed the hand which stole it; how appropriate.”

The next day would be the funerals.  Everyone who wished to was allowed to attend.  I had not been to the cave for many years and when I saw what Myrddyn had done I was astounded. “It is like one of the mausoleums in Constantinopolis save it is natural.”

“This will endure long enough to pass a message to the future.”

I looked at Gawan who shrugged. “You know how enigmatic he likes to be.”

My father’s body had been brought on a cart from the fort.  The four of us, Tuanthal, Gawan, Myrddyn and I, lifted the body and carried it into the cave.  Brother Oswald led the procession holding Caledfwlch. My mother walked before with a torch and my tearful younger sister Delbchaem followed. The warriors and the people followed.

I was amazed as we walked across the stone floor. Myrddyn’s workers had polished it smooth. There was a niche in one side beneath a Latin inscription. We reverently placed my father’s body in the niche and Brother Oswald handed me the sword.  I placed it on the body and stepped back.

“Warlord, we are here to say goodbye and for you and your mighty sword to be reunited.” Everything went silent.  The mourners were united in silence and grief.  From the dark recesses of the cavern came a steady drip of water. When the drip stopped it was as though the heart of the mountain had stopped.  Beyond the cave there was a distant rumble of thunder and then the drip began again.

Myrddyn seemed delighted, “The spirits have spoken. This place is now a special place a holy place.” He nodded at me.

I walked back to the body and took the sword from my father.  I paused as I took it.  I leaned close in to his face and whispered, “I swear that I will protect your land for you. Watch over me, father, for I need your help still.”

I turned and faced a sea of torch lit faces. “I take this sword, Caledfwlch, which was Saxon Slayer and swear to continue to fight Rheged’s foes.”

The silence continued and Gawan walked up to the body.  I could see tears in his eyes.  In his hands he held the old wolf cloak.  I could see that others had repaired it and there was now a clasp with two beautiful blue stones holding it. He placed it on the body and then he too leaned in and whispered something.

He joined me and we watched as Geraint and Aedh’s scouts marched in with his body. There was no niche made for the Captain of Scouts but they reverently laid his body on the ground beneath my father’s.

They stood around with heads bowed as Myrddyn intoned, “Spirits of Wyddfa here is a brave warrior, Aedh of Castle Perilous.  Let him watch over his lord until the end of time.”

I know not how long we stood there but when I looked around there was just my family, Brother Oswald, Myrddyn and Tuanthal.

Myfanwy put her arm around Delbchaem. “Come let us go and feast. It is what your father would have wished.”

As we walked into the storm filled afternoon I heard my sister say.  “What did those words mean above my father?”

Brother Oswald walked next to her.  “That is Latin.  It said, ‘Here lies Lord Lann, Warlord of Rheged: the greatest warrior in the west.”

She nodded, “It is true and he would like that.”

Myfanwy shook her head. “He would not like that for your father was the most modest man I ever knew. But I am glad that those words are there so that the whole world will know what they have lost.”

Our plans to mourn Lord Lann were destroyed five days after he was placed into his tomb. The first of the scouts arrived back to tell us of the disaster of Eboracum. They had been sent by King Cadwallon to warn us of our imminent danger.

“Warlord we had the fortress surrounded but we found ourselves surrounded.  The brothers Oswald and Oswiu came with their elder brother Eanfrith.” I was about to ask a question when Myrddyn held up his hand. I heeded his advice. “At the same time a fleet of ships appeared in the river carrying King Raedwald and his men.” He hesitated.  I could see criticism in his eyes but he had been trained well by Aedh and he continued with his message. “King Cadwallon tried to break out south. King
Fiachnae mac Báetáin
led his men north west.  We had to fight our way to the high divide.  The Saxons pursued us relentlessly.  Captains Pol and Lann Aelle led attack after attack to drive back the Saxons but they were like the sands of the sea. No matter how many they slew more sprang up to take their place.  We found an old Roman fort on the high ground.  We took shelter there and they beat themselves against it for half a day before drifting back east. We brought the survivors over the divide.  King Cadwallon and Penda have gone to Wrecsam and Lord Lann Aelle is bringing the survivors here.”

I patted him on the shoulder, “You have done well, now rest.”

He half turned and then he said, “Someone said that Captain Aedh had died.”

“He did.”

The man looked despondent. “Then the last alliance has failed and we will drown in a sea of Saxons.”

“No it has not.  This is a setback only.  We will return stronger from this.  The sacrifices made by Lord Lann and Aedh will bear fruit in the future.”

I looked around at my little brother who seemed to have grown in stature since we had buried our father. “Send for my uncle, Lord Aelle.  We need to make plans.”

I saw Tuanthal nod and leave the hall.  Myfanwy smiled, “It is good that we laid in so much food for the funeral feast.  We will now need it to feed your army, Warlord.”

I kissed her on the head as she left.  My father had chosen well. “Brother Oswald, we had best prepare maps again.  We have a campaign to plan.”