The Red And Savage Tongue (Historical Fiction Action Adventure Book, set in Dark Age post Roman Britain) (15 page)

    
‘There’s little we can do at this present time,’ said Anna. ‘We can’t neglect the harvest or the raiders will find only skeletons and graves to rob on their arrival.’

     Enthused now, Darga stood up and began to pace the room.
‘As soon as the harvesting is done I could go to nearby villages and rally our folk together. We could then get ready to meet the oncoming force head on. Surely they would flee when seeing such numbers.’

    
‘From what I’ve heard,’ said Brinley, ‘that would fail against them. They raid in many small bands, suitable for plundering against unprepared villages. This way they can colonise the land quickly. Few men, yes, but their war craft when pitted against farmers means they don’t need many men. So, by removing men from one village, you would leave it undefended, whilst our main force would be elsewhere.’

     Darga threw up his hands.
‘Then what do
you
suggest we do? There are too few of us here to have any chance against them.’

     
‘There will be a meeting of all boys and men in the morning before we go to the fields,’ said Brinley. ‘Resist them or leave may be our only option. But that is a decision we can not make without—’

     A cry
from outside caused the occupants of the hut to jump to their feet. ‘Come quickly men of the village! Riders approach from the forest!’

Recognising the importance of preventing Egbert and Cissa returning to Camulodunum with the news of their scouting mission, Murdoc and Dominic had decided to give chase. A hasty reconnaissance of the surrounding area proved that no other riders would threaten their camp, and Withred, it was agreed, would stay behind to provide security for the others while they were gone.    

     Although half a day behind, Dominic reckoned that Egbert’s injury would impede
his and Cissa’s attempted escape, so he expected to capture them quickly.

     They selected two sturdy Garrons to ride and lost no more time starting the chase. They urged
the mounts into a quick trot as Dominic leaned forward to study the track. ‘If we go as quickly as the land permits and stick to their trail we must catch them soon,’ he said.

    Murdoc sat upright peering into the trees and shrubs around him.
‘We’ve the advantage of your knowledge of this part of the forest, and their trail’s still visible, even to a farmer like me. If they leave the track and stumble through the brush, then so much the better.’

     Later that day, it seemed that
Egbert and Cissa had indeed left the main track. Dominic stooped to examine the signs, but soon looked back up the trail. ‘It looks like they left here, but thought better about it.’ He rubbed trail dirt through his fingers before wiping his hands clean on his breeches and standing up. ‘They are still on the trail, but it looks like they wasted time here, so they are closer than I thought.’

     They continued
, and as night drew near, they had still not sighted Cissa and Egbert, though their spoor was fresh. They slept rough that night and awakened to a gloomy sky the next morning. After weeks of fine weather, the day held an air of unrest.

    
‘See how heavy the sky is,’ said Dominic, frowning, as he peered up at the swirling, leaden clouds above the leaf canopy. ‘The damn ponies will be knee deep in water before the morning’s out.’ He crouched and tested the firmness of the ground. ‘All the surrounding forest drains onto this track, and I’ve seen many trails destroyed by torrents over the years.’

    
‘Let’s hope we sight them soon then,’ said Murdoc, ‘their trail will disappear if the rains come.’

     Dominic looked again at the earth below him.
‘It seems we’ve gained ground on them already, this dirt tells me we may find them today.’

      They had gone but a short distance down the trail when the clouds released their deluge. The rain pattered on the track before them, bouncing high, even from the glutinous clay, such was its intensity, and soon a shallow stream began to flow beneath them. They donned weather capes, which quickly became soaked and clung to them like sodden rags as they struggled on through the bleak morning.

     ‘This is no use!’ shouted Murdoc from under his soaking hood. ‘The water’s already half way up to the knees of my pony. We need to get to higher ground and wait for the storm to pass; it would be dangerous to continue!’

     ‘No,
keep going!’ shouted Dominic, as the wind soughed violently through the trees above them. ‘If
we
struggle so do
they
. We’ll come upon them soon, trust me!’

     They rode for another hour before Dominic stopped and dismounted to examine a smaller trail that joined the main track. Nodding he looked up at Murdoc.
‘This is the trail that Egbert’s men used before; it leads to the clearing where I first saw you. I thought they might have gone this way, but nothing’s passed here for days. It seems they failed to see it.’

     They continued down the main track, Murdoc becoming increasingly concerned at the worsening state of the clay embankment
s that rose steeply above them on either side. ‘I don’t like this at all Dom!’ he shouted. ‘See how the sides of the slopes glisten with water!  If this continues the land could slide and we’ll be buried!’

    
‘Then keep moving!’ shouted Dominic. ‘I know this part of the trail and we’ll be through it soon!’

      Moments later, true to Dominic’s prediction, they emerged from the sunken lane at a point where the hillside dropped away steeply on one side, but reared higher than before on the other. The rain ran down this incline, directly across the track and gushed into the steep drop to their left.

     It was clear that the going was going to be slow here, as huge bites had fallen away from the track and slid down the hillside. In places, the track way was barely wide enough to take one pony. Murdoc rode his in the lead position, but had to stop suddenly when reaching a point where the path had entirely succumbed to the weather and slid down the hillside, along with much of the embankment above it.

     Dominic
abruptly brought his own mount to a halt. As he looked down, he saw a huge landslide of wet clay, carving a glutinous path of destruction slowly down the hillside. So great was its bulk, that it had plucked a number of shrubs from their precarious anchorages on the steep incline, and these slowly twisted and turned as they accompanied the great mound of clay down into the valley below.

     Dominic
assessed their chances. They would undoubtedly end up under the mud if they carried on. Surely, It would be better now to cut their losses and at least return in one piece back to Martha and the others. He shouted to Murdoc, ‘We can’t chance going on in this! To continue would be madness! We need to get back to the camp and hope the murderers lay buried under the mud!

 
   Murdoc twisted in his saddle; his face smeared; the rain tracing clean rivulets through the clay upon his cheeks. He shouted above the din of the storm: ‘How do we turn the ponies? The path’s too narrow and they’re stuck in the sludge!’

    
‘Dismount and coax it backwards then,’ shouted Dominic. ‘But take it slowly. The track will slide again if we’re not careful!’

     Following Dominic’s advice, Murdoc was able to move his pony slowly back along the track, shadowing Dominic as he did the same. Their progress was
tortuous and labored but they eventually reached a spot where the ponies could stand two abreast. They turned to face their route back to camp, just as a wet sucking noise had them look behind again. They watched as the path fractured from the hillside, amidst a boiling of cold rain, and slid into the steaming depth of the deep gully.

    
‘I was here two summers ago on a fine day,’ said Dominic, looking at the place where the track had been. The clay was dry then, but cracks ran along it, where it met the slope. I expected the rain to have worsened it, but I thought we would have got past here without mishap.’

    
‘Like you, I hope the raiders lie under the mud in the valley below,’ said Murdoc, as he swung onto his pony. ‘If, as you say, our chase ends here.’

     Dominic, already mounted, coerced his pony back
through the sunken lane as the rain increased its deluge to a new intensity. ‘We’ve no choice
but
to return!’ he shouted back to Murdoc. ‘And if your God exists then pray to him now, for if these walls give way you’ll be meeting him soon!’

    
Murdoc’s God ensured the towering embankments held firm, and they emerged from their ominous shadow moments later unscathed and relieved. The water now reached their knees as they sat on the ponies. 

    
‘I hope this nag can float,’ said Murdoc with apprehension as he reached a current that swirled across the path. ‘If this continues we’ll have to
swim
back to the others.’  

     His pony, keen to be on drier ground, attempted to jump the swirling water of the current before him, but lost its footing and slipped sideways into a shallow
depression. Its bulk landed on Murdoc’s right leg. His shinbone sheared cleanly under the animal’s weight. Man and beast slid down a short slope coming to a halt by a fallen hazel shrub. Murdoc looked up to see Dominic staring at him, shocked and motionless.

    
At first he felt nothing as his mind raced. Had the chilling numbness of the rain had extended to his injury. The hope proved futile as the pain came all at once, as a searing, burning, hammer blow, beneath his knee.

     The swirling green of the forest, darkened to pitch-black as the pain threatened his consciousness, but the wet, earthy smell of the forest around him served to restore his lucidity. The pony twisted in its efforts to regain its
footing making things far worse.  Murdoc’s eyes squeezed shut in pain—his clenched teeth standing out in white contrast to his smeared face. He briefly looked before him and saw Dominic’s blurred figure. ‘Get it off me!’ he screamed. 

     Dominic, his earlier torpor gone, dismounted and ran down the slimy slope. The stranded pony had forced Murdoc over so that h
e now lay face down in the mud—retching violently after swallowing a mouthful of the glutinous slop.

     Dominic slipped onto his rear and slid the short distance to Murdoc on his backside, coming to a halt on the pony’s belly. Regaining his footing, he grabbed the beasts bridle and tugged
hard, until the pony, its eyes rolling like huge, white marbles, lurched to its knees. It gained its footing, thus freeing Murdoc of its weight. Terrified, it ran down the track and out of sight.

     Dominic grim
aced as he looked at the injury, and was relieved to see that no jagged bone protruded through Murdoc’s skin. Murdoc groaned with the pain of the fracture, trying not to give vent to the screams of agony that welled within.

     Dominic raised
him to a sitting position as the rain drove into the clay. ‘Don’t worry my friend,’ he said breathlessly, ‘you’re with a man who once survived a broken arm alone in this forest. The first thing to do is to get you up onto the track again.’

    This proved less than easy, but Murdoc managed to support himself on his good leg and place his arm around Dominic’s shoulders. Their first attempt at gaining the path above resulted in them slipping and sliding back down to their starting position. On this occasion, Murdoc
didn’t attempt to conceal his agony, and his howls of pain resounded around them, sounding thin and reedy in the damp air of the forest.

     Another failed attempt follow
ed before they reached the path. Here, they lay gasping from the effort of the short but exhausting climb.

     Dominic sat upon his haunches as his breath returned.
‘I’m getting too old for this … companions who break their legs should be left lying in the mud, so that old men like me can have ease of bone. I’ll have to treat the break in your leg here and now, if you’re not to spend the rest of your days begging for alms in the gutters of some forsaken town.’

     Murdoc looked down at his injury and winced on seeing the protrusion pushing up under the skin. 
‘Then get it over with and stop your prattling, man. The pain gnaws at my very soul.’

     Dominic left, and returned shortly after with two, short, straight staves cut from a nearby tree. He placed the staves on the ground beside Murdoc and handed him the leather bridle from his pony.
‘Bite upon this,’ he said. ‘Forgive me, but I need to straighten your leg before I bind it.’

     Murdoc bit deeply on the bridle, as Dominic,
without hesitation, jerked the bones together as best he could. The shock caused Murdoc to arch his back off the ground as the grinding bones caused his muscles to spasm, and Dominic saw a vision of how his friend would look as an old man, as Murdoc’s agonized, gaunt face blanched and aged before him.

    
‘That’s the worst of it,’ said Dominic, his face a picture of concern as he ran his palm over Murdoc’s forehead. ‘Now I’ll stop the bones moving.’