Saga of Wessex 004: The Way of the Raven by H. A. Culley

Author:H. A. Culley [Culley, H. A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Fiction, War & Military, Medieval Europe, Anglo-Saxon Viking War
ISBN: 9798584842208
Google: 56IozgEACAAJ
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: 2020-12-28T07:00:00+00:00

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The Viking encampment looked deserted. We’d watched it for most of the morning and we’d seen no sign of life: no sentries on the ramparts or comings and goings through the open gate.

‘The Vikings might have planned to spend the winter here but they’re certainly not here now,’ Halig muttered.

‘No, I fear you’re right. Come on, we have to make certain.’

I led my little group of eleven men through the gates and into the camp. Behind the earthen ramparts lay a muddy expanse of nothing. You could see where the tents had been pitched and crudely made duckboards still lay along the walkways between the places where they had stood but there was nothing else, except the usual detritus that every army leaves behind.

‘Halig, who’s your best tracker?’ I asked.

‘Probably Beadurof; he may be a useless sentry but he can follow the faintest of trails.’

‘Right, he can lead with Cináed. Let’s see where Hӕsten and his heathens have disappeared to.’

‘’You think that they’ve left here for good then?’ Ywer asked.

‘Yes, why else would they have taken their tents, their families and everything they own with them? They left them behind last year.’

‘Yes, it seems a strange thing to do, especially in the middle of winter. If the snow and ice comes, they could all perish.’

It was a fair point. Although it was cold, the sun shone in a sky dotted with white, puffy clouds at the moment. However, such fine spells seldom lasted for long at this time of year so I didn’t imagine that Hӕsten would stray far from the main roads. What puzzled me was why he would risk going anywhere with women and children in tow in January. The only explanation I could come up with was that, unlike the previous year, he didn’t intend to return.

The trail took us north-west away from the coast and we camped for the night beside a stream. I estimated that we were between fifteen and twenty miles from Lundenburg now but that couldn’t be Hӕsten’s destination, surely. The old Roman walls had long since been repaired and, even with so many warriors, the Vikings had little chance of capturing the place.

For the next few days we followed the trail to the north of Lundenburg and as far as Verulamacæster. The weather had continued to be fine until the last day. When we awoke that morning the temperature had dropped and the sky was full of dark clouds. I had given up using Cináed and Beadurof as scouts. Even a blind man could follow the tracks of several thousand people, some mounted, and numerous carts. Now we took it in turns to ride point in pairs.

One of the Mercians, a boy of fifteen called Osric, accompanied me as we rode ahead of the others along the rutted track. After a while it met an old Roman thoroughfare which had to be Casingc Stræt. From the tracks it seemed that the Vikings were now headed north-west along the dividing line between Æðelred’s Mercia and the Danelaw.

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