Scourge of God by May C.R

Author:May, C.R. [May, C.R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-12-02T00:00:00+00:00

16

Freya’s Visit

A sudden gust blew in from the west, uncloaking the hoof and footprints of an invading army as it ridged up the ash.

Oswy plucked at his sleeve. ‘There is our man.’

Halga looked. Two riders had reappeared at the Mars Gate, quickly followed by others, as the scouts put back their heels to canter across the bridge and upslope in a cloud of cinders. ‘Good,’ he replied with a frown, ‘let us get down there. The smell of rotting bodies will make a welcome change from shit and piss.’ It had quickly become clear that the woodland edge had become the place to go when the men and women of the army of Attila had cause to ease their bowels. Although Horsa had moved the battle line downslope, the stench lay heavily on a land baking in the midsummer heat. The scouts were soon with their leader, and Halga looked on as they made their report.

Arékan said. ‘It doesn’t look good. We shall be looking for other lodgings tonight.’

Halga opened his mouth to query her, but the question was stillborn as the sound of his name carried across the slope. ‘Come along,’ he said. ‘You know the town and may be of help.’ The pair handed the reins to Oswy and began to trot across. They were using the horses as sparingly as possible now, dismounting at every stop, however brief. If the rivers were plentiful and the meadows lush with grass in this part of Gaul, the hard stone roads had worn horseshoes to slivers. Footsore and weary after a month of daylong use, the horses were in far worse shape than the men.

As ever, Edwin was at Horsa’s side, and the Angles broke off their conversation as Halga and Arékan came up. Horsa came straight to the point. ‘There are too many dead,’ he said. ‘If we spend even a solitary night here we will likely sicken, and I have not spent this long in a hostile land to lose a man unnecessarily.’ He shot Arékan a weary smile: ‘or woman.’ The extended campaign had sapped them all.

Halga said. ‘What do you intend?’

‘It looks like another night spent sleeping at the roadside.’ Horsa cast a look westwards, and the group followed his gaze. The sun lay on the horizon, the skyline aflame. ‘We have — what, an hour of light? Enough time to retrace our steps and find another brook or river to water the horses.’

‘There is an alternative,’ Arékan put in. ‘A hundred yards beyond the northern gate, there is an amphitheatre. It is disused now, but the circuit remains unbroken, and it is large enough to hold us all.’ She indicated the river with a nod of her head. ‘There is ample grass outside the walls and along the riverside, and if we take the horses upstream we can be sure that the water is untainted from the goings-on here.’

Horsa’s eyes opened in question, and the Hun explained how she knew. ‘I was here a while back,’ she said, ‘with Ottar Hunding and the rest of his comitatus.

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