The Song of the Tides: The Song of Octa Novella (The Song of Britain Book 6) by James Calbraith

Author:James Calbraith [Calbraith, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Flying Squid
Published: 2021-08-01T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER V

THE LAY OF AHES

The riders in the vanguard of the Gothic column glance around nervously. Their hands rest on the hilts of their swords. They peer through the foliage, trying to penetrate the gloom under the boughs with their gaze. Each rustle in the leaves, each bough broken under the foot of a startled animal makes them stop and investigate the disturbance. They are right to be anxious. The column marches down the finest ambush place in all of Armorica: a twenty-mile long, deep ravine, as straight as a Roman road, cutting through the hills south of Worgium. The sides of the ravine rise a hundred feet over the floor, steep and overgrown with dense, dark forest. And just as the Goths suspect, my men are set up on top of both of those sides.

None of them are warriors – or at least, they weren’t until about a week ago. Contrary to what the Britons imagined, the natives were not all “Bacauds”; most of the Martinian bandits threatening Armorican villas were wiped out early in the Goth campaign, and what was left were just simple village folk, driven into the woods and marshes from their razed villages. It took Wenelia a long time to find enough of them willing to join our fight and form into something resembling a warband.

All that is left of that warband after days of marching and fighting their way across Armorica, is now with me in the ravine. We lost more than a half of what we started out with – I had no time to turn these poor people into fighters, so all we could count on in battle was their tenacity, numbers – and surprise. The Britons and the Goths are recent guests to this land; the Armoricans know its every corner. Just as Audulf predicted, they knew all the best places for ambushes and traps, even in this flat, featureless land. They were the ones who told me of this ravine, and how we could lure the Gothic column into it by flooding a nearby stream and blocking the main road to Worgium.

I adjust the mail coat I took from the fallen Goth chief – an Armorican blacksmith did his best to make it fit me, but he lacked the necessary skill and metal to ensure it didn’t chafe around the neck and arms. I lay my hand on Croha’s shoulder and give her a squeeze. It’s only the two of us here out of my band of Iutes. Somewhere else in Armorica, Ursula and Audulf each lead two other groups of villagers on similar missions; Marcus and his equites are somewhere out there, too, fighting alongside a small group of Britons loyal to Ahes, performing their lightning strikes along the Roman highways and river crossings. It is as Wenelia had promised: the entire countryside of Armorica is on fire, and the Goths, so haughty and bold at first, have quickly learned to fear the dark woods and the steep hills.

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