Song of the North by Jules Watson

Author:Jules Watson [WATSON, JULES]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC010000, FIC009030, FIC014000
ISBN: 9781468301359
Publisher: The Overlook Press
Published: 2012-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 33

‘M ithras!’ the Roman scout breathed. ‘They are right in our sights!’

Cian did not answer. Lying on his belly in the undergrowth, he was peering through a hawthorn brake, his palms slick around his bow.

The blueskins were usually the ones who became part of the silent forest, attacking suddenly from the shadows. But on this squally day above the Wall one of their ponies, heavily laden with booty from pillaged Votadini farms, had stumbled while crossing a stream and crushed its rider.

Cian and his fellow scouts had been alerted by the screaming of the horse with its broken leg, and though its throat was swiftly cut they were on the trail by then. They watched the Picts drag the injured man away from the stream into the trees and crouch there jabbering, agitated. The downed man seemed important.

‘Enough,’ Cian’s comrade muttered. ‘They’ll kill him in a minute and be off before we can get them.’ He wriggled backwards to the larger troupe of soldiers hidden in the woods. The sound of the rushing stream had covered their approach.

Cian’s pulse was galloping. This was it: his first fight with the Painted Men. A vein in his forehead throbbed.

The signal was given – a cuckoo’s call – and the Roman soldiers sprang out of the bushes as the Picts shrieked, fumbling for their weapons. Cian steadied himself against an oak tree as his first arrow cleaved the air, burying itself in the chest of one blueskin and felling him. Three others met the same fate before the Romans crashed into them, fighting hand to hand. Cian dropped his bow and seized a short sword from its scabbard. Then, with a screech that flew up into the grey clouds above, he barrelled into the fray.

Abruptly, all noise ceased and time slowed.

Pale faces loomed all about him, features twisted with hate, lips spittled, the skin carved up by tattoos. Blades lunged at him. His nerves strained to break into blind panic as the faces kept coming … the swords coming … as they did in his dreams. No. Don’t you dare. Cian screwed up his face. Don’t you dare be a coward. Don’t you dare run.

Instead, he wrestled his fury into action, used it to steady his legs and brace his arms. Mamaí. For you, Mamaí. He saw his mother’s face, white and sunken – and so at last the rage flowed freely.

Cian struck and spun as he had been taught to do once long ago and never forgotten, and his blade sliced across an exposed neck. The give of the sword into flesh shocked him, as did the scarlet spray of arterial blood.

Then a Pict caught the edge of his mailshirt with a dagger, hauling him back to awareness. He hacked again, and another of the feared warriors went down. The sight of blood welling across the blue tattoos did not make Cian feel sick now, but elated. Something hot bloomed in his chest, and he was yelling until he was hoarse, his sword a blur in his hands.

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