Hereward 05 - The Immortals Read online

  ‘No one dies here unless I command it.’ The voice rang out of the dark.

  Ariadne felt her heart swell, even as the first rogue fell with blood gushing from his neck. The second cut-throat wrenched around, flailing, but the assailant was invisible in the shadows, his blade too swift. In an instant, all the soldiers lay dead in their own life-blood.

  Salih ibn Ziyad stepped into the shaft of wan light breaking through the doorway. Ariadne watched his glittering eyes fall upon Leo and feared what was to come. But then he looked at Rowena as if he had seen nothing at all. ‘Rest easy. No harm will come to this girl while I yet live.’

  Ariadne felt a rush of warmth. Her teacher, her friend, always there, always protecting her. She had been in darkness so long, but now she was blessed.

  ‘There is more to you than meets the eye, Salih ibn Ziyad,’ Rowena replied, relief edging her words.

  ‘For too long we have been lambs,’ Salih said, looking from one face to the other. ‘We thought if we hid away, the wolf would never find us. But now we know he will never relent until he hunts us down. It is time to put aside our differences and find our own teeth.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  ACROSS THE PLAIN where a wall of dust marched, thunder rolled. But this was a storm of horses and steel. The ground throbbed as Roussel de Bailleul’s army raced towards where the lines of Athanatoi waited. Their silvery armour glowed like embers in the ruddy light. Reflected barbs glinted off their helmets, but not from their weapons. Swords were sheathed, lances resting in their hoods.

  The hot wind was rising. The air reeked of fire and iron. The world trembled.

  On his horse, Guthrinc shielded his eyes against the glare of the dawn and watched the force loom out of the misty distance. So many of them, he thought, but still not the numbers of which they had been warned. Tiberius had been right. If the Immortals wished to take a stand, they might yet carve out a victory, though it would be a bloody one, with many losses.

  But that was not the plan.

  Beside him, Mad Hengist began to laugh as if he had seen the most wondrous sight. ‘’Pon the wings of angels we will be carried away,’ he gasped, and laughed some more.

  Beyond him, Tiberius leaned along the neck of his horse and watched the cloud of dust eat its way across the plain. Now the time had come, the unease that had knotted his features had ebbed away. He was calm, ready.

  ‘You English are good warriors. You have earned your place at the front of this line,’ he said to Guthrinc. ‘I know you think most of my men are too raw for battle. Many have not yet been hardened by seeing a friend cut down, or feeling a sharp blade rip through their flesh. And you would be right. But they will learn.’ He glanced over at the English, no doubt seeing the nicks in their hauberks, the dents in their helmets, their greasy fur and tortured leather, the scars of too many bloody campaigns. And then he looked along the lines of his own men in their pristine armour, nary a scratch to be seen. ‘No, they are not yet good fighters,’ he continued, ‘but they are good horsemen. Can you say the same? For that is the skill you will need if you wish to see the sun set.’

  ‘We will give a good account of ourselves.’ Guthrinc forced a smile, but if he dared admit it to himself, he had his doubts. He had seen seven summers when he rode his first horse, but it had been a lumbering old beast, useful for pulling his father’s cart to market and little else. Only the wealthiest had been able to afford a horse in his village, but if truth be told there had been little use for them in the sodden fens. Oxen pulled ploughs. Legs were better for clambering past the watercourses and skirting the sucking bogs. No, his spear-brothers had only been forced to learn to ride when they had clawed their way into the Roman army, and it had been as if they were careering down a steep hill towards a lake of swords. ‘You will be watching our hooves disappearing over the horizon,’ he said with a confident nod.

  Mocking laughter rumbled out. Isaac Balsamon, the Boar, jabbed a finger towards the English. ‘I would make a wager if I thought there would be someone left to pay the dues.’

  ‘Make the wager.’ Derman the Ghost’s voice was barely a whisper, almost lost beneath the pounding of approaching hooves. His face impassive, he sat upright upon his horse, his coal-dark eyes fixed on the wall of dust. ‘I will return to pick the coin from your pouch once the birds have picked the flesh from your bones.’

  ‘Silence,’ Tiberius commanded. ‘In camp you may be rivals. Here on the field of battle you are brothers.’

  Chastened, the Boar looked away. Derman nodded his agreement.

  Roussel de Bailleul’s army thundered closer still.

  Tiberius stiffened. The moment had almost come. ‘They will have seen the sun upon our armour. They know that we are outnumbered. The battle-lust is upon them. Their blood will be up, the fires in their bellies burning hot. Reason has fled and they will not think to slow, or stop.’ Drawing himself up, he raised his right hand and boomed, ‘Upon my order.’

  Along the shimmering lines, heads turned towards him.

  For a moment, Tiberius waited, until he was sure the distance between the two armies was just right. His arm snapped down and he bellowed, ‘Ride!’

  Guthrinc felt as if the world around him heaved into life with one great shrug. The air boomed with the sound of a multitude of hooves pounding as one, the clank of armour and the roar of full-throated battle-cries. He lurched forward. His eyes stung as grime billowed up. The din filled his head, driving all thought away. Ahead, the line of dust swept closer, and now he could see the dark shapes at the heart of it.

  An age seemed to pass as the Immortals thundered towards near-certain doom. But then the riders on the right flank began to turn in a great, slow arc. Along the lines, the turn flowed in perfect timing. The Roman army began to change direction. Guthrinc waited, his knees gripping the powerful beast beneath him. He glimpsed Derman begin his turn, and then Hengist, and then he urged his steed to join the martial dance.

  The Immortals turned, and turned. A vast cloud of dust swallowed them. Choking on the grit, Guthrinc screwed his watering eyes shut tight. His head spun from the deafening pounding, and the sensation of being swept along by a mighty river swelled by spring floodwater.

  His thoughts whirled back to the long conversations around the campfire. ‘They will think us afrit. They will want to ride on, and on, desperate to bring down the cowards and put them to the sword. But we will be fresh, our mounts rested, and they will already have had a long ride from Amaseia. And so we will lure them on, far away from their fortress. Draw them out into the vast plain, to the edge of the forests, until their mounts are so weary it will take them an age to return to their home.’

  And in that time, Hereward will lead his war-band away from Roussel’s palace, with the Caesar in one hand and a chest filled with gold in the other.

  Guthrinc grinned. If God was smiling on them, they would snatch victory from what had seemed like certain defeat.

  Opening his eyes, he blinked away the sweat. Now there was only the riding, as far and fast as they could manage.

  Though his muscles ached from gripping on for dear life, he snatched a glance to one side. His spear-brothers all seemed to be commanding their steeds well. No man had fallen behind. The dust trailed behind them, and now there was only the clear plain ahead, sweltering under an arc of blue, and the black line of the forests in the distance.

  And yet, as he stared ahead, he felt unease creep over him. On the edge of his vision, beyond the left flank, he sensed movement. Another long line of dust was starting to swell. Telling himself it was nothing, he fought to keep his attention on the ground sweeping beneath his horse’s hooves. But he felt his gaze drawn back as if he had a hook in his skin.

  The dust cloud was sweeping towards them. Beside him, he glimpsed Tiberius’ head jerking round. The commander had noticed it too. As Guthrinc watched the Roman’s face drain of blood, he knew what they were seeing. The scout had not lied. Roussel de Bailleul’s army was as large as t
hey had feared, but it had been divided into two forces, for some reason he could not divine. And now they were caught between the pincers.

  Tiberius roared his command until his throat was raw, but under the drumming of the hooves the words barely reached even Guthrinc’s ears. The Immortals rode on, oblivious.

  By the time the ranks of Athanatoi had realized what was happening, it was too late, Guthrinc could see. The riders on the left flank tried to steer their mounts away from the approaching army, but they were too slow. Even if they had succeeded, they had lost the advantage.

  With hope of escape draining away, Tiberius wrenched out his sword and stabbed it aloft. Guthrinc saw the act repeated along the lines. A battle-cry rang out, filled with defiance. There was no choice but to fight, they all knew that. And they all knew that death was close. But these were not cowards as he had feared. They would look their fate in the eye and go down fighting.

  Guthrinc turned to the English on his left and bellowed, ‘Brothers! Fight as you never have before!’

  His call jumped from lips to lips. Eyes filled with sparks. Axes leapt to hands.

  The only hope, if hope it was, was to cut a swathe through the approaching army before the warriors at their backs fell upon them like wolves. As Tiberius leaned low, thrashing his horse on to even greater speed, Guthrinc could see this was the plan in the commander’s mind.

  Soon the Normans and Roussel’s axes-for-hire were visible in the swirling dust, row upon row of some of the fiercest fighting men in this part of the world. But Guthrinc silently vowed not to be disheartened. He had stared into the faces of William the Bastard’s men while Ely burned around him – he, a simple farmer – and he had lived to tell the tale. Bowing his head, he urged his horse to keep pace with Tiberius.

  When the two sides came together, it was like the waves of two great oceans crashing against each other. The air boomed. Hooves pounded like hammers on an anvil and the whinnies of rearing, terrified horses rose like screams. Steel smashed against steel. Sparks flew. Shields splintered. Throat-tearing cries ripped out.

  Guthrinc felt his senses reel from the tumult. The ordered lines collapsed in an instant and chaos swirled on every side. There was no sky, only clouds of dust, hacking swords and bristling lances. No ground, only a turbulent sea of horses and men.

  The world closed in. Guthrinc glimpsed only flashes as the battle heaved around him. His mouth a rictus, Tiberius stabbed his sword into the face of a shaven-headed Norman. Hengist slashed around him with his axe, his lips pulled back from his teeth in a bestial snarl, no doubt seeing the Normans who had slaughtered his kin back in England and driven him mad.

  Guthrinc felt a bolt of pain in his thigh as a charger slammed into his mount sideways on and his leg was pinned. Wrenching round, he looked straight into the face of a warrior driven half mad by his battle-lust. Mouth wide open, he was laughing as he thrust his sword. Somehow Guthrinc swivelled and the edge of the blade sliced across his upper arm instead of plunging into his heart.

  Pain seared into his shoulder, but it was enough to drive the confusion from his head. He would have preferred to be using a bow – that was his weapon, mastered by hunting wildfowl in the rain-soaked fens – but he was a big man, stronger than anyone he knew, and when he used his axe it counted.

  His arm came down in a blur. The blade smashed through the Norman’s skull and down deeper still, almost to the centre of his chest. Guthrinc wrenched it out, spraying grey matter and blood.

  Gentle Guthrinc, they had called him back in his village, and he hated what these wars had made of him. But as he looked round, he saw that his savagery had served his purpose. The Normans urged their horses towards easier victims, giving him a wide berth.

  As a space opened up around him, his breath caught in his throat. The Immortals were being slaughtered like oxen for the king’s feast. Before his eyes they fell one by one, their clumsy sword skills no match for Norman warriors who had lived for battle since they were children.

  The ground had become a bloody marsh, miring the horses in the bog. Eyes wide with terror, they frothed at the mouth as they tried to drag themselves free. Roman bodies, or what remained of them, lay crushed face down into the mud.

  One steed galloped by in front of him, its headless rider lolling upon its back. It ranged back and forth, directionless. In that terrible sight was the sum total of the fate of the Athanatoi.

  Craning his neck back, Guthrinc peered through the churning mass of bodies. The other half of Roussel’s army was bearing down upon them. Once they arrived no man stood a chance of surviving this massacre. Hengist saw it too, and in that moment all madness fled his face. The bleak sanity that settled upon him was somehow even worse.

  Guthrinc felt clarity descend as the mad din of battle ebbed away. In the silence in his head, he turned this way and that until he caught sight of Tiberius. The Roman commander’s pristine armour was now clotted with gore.

  Urging his horse forward, Guthrinc clutched for Tiberius’ arm. Spittle flew from the Roman’s mouth as he whirled, his axe swinging up. But the battle-madness cleared enough for him to recognize his ally.

  ‘If we fight on, we die,’ Guthrinc bellowed above the clamour. ‘Give the order to flee.’

  ‘My men will not obey me,’ Tiberius said, his face streaked red. Tears of desperation flecked his eyes. ‘I will doom them if we go.’

  ‘They are already doomed.’

  Tiberius looked around and saw the truth. Despair crumpled his features. But for all his faults he was a good leader, Guthrinc saw, one who was prepared to shoulder the guilt for the sacrifice that was to come. ‘Ride!’ he roared. ‘Ride! Follow my lead!’

  His command sped through the ranks closest to him. Digging his heels into his mount’s flanks, Tiberius rode hard through a narrow space. His sword whipped right and left to force a wider way. Raising his arm, Guthrinc snapped it forward, and as one the English swept into the Roman’s wake.

  Like a knife, the remnants of the Immortals carved through the milling mass of Roussel’s force. With each spear-length that passed beneath the horses’ hooves, more of the Athanatoi followed.

  Guthrinc hacked at any Norman who dared come close. But their enemies had easier prey, and they turned their attention to picking off any of the Romans who were floundering.

  For a moment, a wall of warriors blocked the way ahead, making the path seem impenetrable. Guthrinc felt a pang of anguish that their last gasp had died on their lips.

  But Tiberius drove on with the Immortals close behind him, and the barrier parted. The last resistance flowed away and then all that remained of Constantinople’s hope flooded out into the wide, open plain. Guthrinc sensed the palpable relief of the blood-spattered men riding beside him, but the feeling was tempered by despair. At their backs, the screams of the dying rang up to the heavens. Guthrinc felt sick to the pit of his stomach when he thought of the true meaning of the Athanatoi name: the ones who are without death. That battlefield had now become the graveyard of their arrogance.

  The Immortals rode on. No one looked back.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  THE CARRION BIRDS swirled in a black cloud. Their shadows roiled over a red field, baking under the cruel sun. In the centre a ragged banner of a double-headed eagle fluttered, the blood-spattered standard of the Immortals. Among a jumble of torn bodies, its pole listed, wavering. It had been rammed into the corpse of the warrior who had no doubt carried it, the victors’ mockery of the promise it held. Reeking of iron and rot, the wind lashed across that desolate plain to the four men who stood on the high ground, taking in the haunting scene of loss.

  ‘Why did they not flee?’ Alexios breathed. ‘There was no need to stand and fight.’ The young warrior’s drawn face was too pale. Anyone who looked at him would think he had aged ten years or more in the time since he had left Constantinople.

  Hereward narrowed his eyes, knowing there was no hope of recognizing any of his friends who might be lying among the f
allen, searching none the less. He would not give in to despair. His spear-brothers had survived many a desperate battle in bygone days. ‘All that matters now is that the Athanatoi are not coming back for us,’ he said. ‘We are on our own.’

  Maximos watched the birds feast. ‘We can as easily make our way back to Constantinople on our own.’

  ‘But not the way we came. Roussel’s army may well be hunting survivors. We would not want to ride straight into the middle of them.’

  ‘South, then, and cut to the west along the road from Iconic. But the Turks have driven deep into that part of the empire. Their war-bands roam wherever they choose, looting from any village they come across.’

  Hereward strode back to where they had tied their horses. The beasts needed watering and resting; they had been ridden hard from Amaseia. He rested one hand on the coffer strapped to his mount’s rear with the rope they had taken from one of the villages on the way. If his men had survived, all this would have been worthwhile.

  ‘Maximos speaks true.’ Alexios stepped past him and stroked the flank of his own horse. Though his wit was still as sharp as a knife – no man in the Athanatoi was sharper, Hereward thought – the young man’s humour had been dulled in recent days. His worries seemed to be weighing heavily on him. ‘The emperor is too weak, too distracted by his own selfish needs,’ he continued. ‘Every day that passes while he is on the throne is another betrayal of all Romans.’

  ‘And you think you could do better?’

  ‘It is not something I desire.’

  Hereward laughed without humour. ‘I cannot walk a street in Constantinople without stumbling over someone or other who thinks he deserves the crown.’ He glanced towards Maximos. The Roman was watching them both like a hawk while Zeno continued to scan the battlefield. ‘There is no love lost between you and Maximos.’

  Alexios shrugged. ‘He thinks highly of himself, and less so of me. But I do not know him. I know his kin. How they fell on hard times when the Verini gained the upper hand in the rivalry that had consumed them for years. I am told that since Victor Verinus’ death, the Nepotes are once more rising up.’ He looked up to the clear blue sky where the ravens still swooped, shrieking. ‘I think Maximos now sees me as a rival, perhaps everyone. There are some who want, and some who want too much.’