Last Enchantment (9781444737530) by Stewart Mary

Author:Stewart, Mary [Stewart, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781444737530
Publisher: Hachette Book Group USA

CHAPTER 10

The investing of Caer Camel saw the start of the new campaign. Four more years it took: siege and skirmish, flying attack and ambush—except during the midwinter months he was never at rest. And twice more, towards the end of that time, he triumphed over the enemy in a major engagement.

The first of these battles was joined in response to a call from Elmet. Eosa himself had landed from Germany, at the head of fresh Saxon war-bands, to be joined by the East Saxons already established north of the Thames. Cerdic added a third point to the spear with a force brought by longboat from Rutupiae. It was the worst threat since Luguvallium. The invaders came swarming in force up the Vale, and were threatening what Arthur had long foreseen, to break through the barrier of the mountains by the Gap. Surprised and (no doubt) disconcerted by the readiness of the fort at Olicana, they were checked and held there, while the message was sent flashing south for Arthur. The East Saxon force, which was considerable, was concentrated on Olicana; the King of Elmet held them there, but the others streamed westwards through the Gap. Arthur, heading fast up the west road, reached the Tribuit fort before them, and re-forming there in strength, caught them at Nappa Ford. He vanquished them there, in a bloody struggle, then threw his fast cavalry up through the Gap to Olicana, and, side by side with the King of Elmet, drove the enemy back into the Vale. From there a movement beyond countering, right back, east and south, until the old frontiers contained them, and the Saxon ‘king’, looking round on his bleeding and depleted forces, admitted defeat.

A defeat, as it turned out. all but final. Such was Arthur’s name now, that its very mention had come to mean victory, and ‘the coming of Arthur’ a synonym for salvation. The next time he was called for—it was the clearing-up operation of the long campaign—no sooner had the dreaded cavalry with the white horse at its head and the Dragon glinting over the helmets, showed in the mountain pass of Agned, than the enemy fell into the disarray of near panic, so that the action was a pursuit rather than a battle, a clearing of territory after the main action. Through all this fighting, Gereint (who knew every foot of the territory) was with the cavalry, with a command worthy of him. So Arthur rewarded service.

Eosa himself had received a wound in the fighting at Nappa. He never took the field again. It was the young Cerdic, the Aetheling, who led the Saxons at Agned, and did his best to hold them against the terror of Arthur’s onslaught. It was said that afterwards, as he withdrew—in creditable order—to the waiting longboats, he made a vow that, when he next set foot on British territory, he would stay, and not even Arthur should prevent him.

For that, as I could have told him, he would have to wait till Arthur was no longer there.

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