Dark North

Twenty-One

“The signal!” Benedict cried from above. “The signal!”

The knights and men-at-arms glanced up, alerted. They too heard it — the three-note clarion call they had been waiting for.

“Mount up!” Lucan called to his mesnie.

With hurried shouts and a neighing of nervous steeds, men leapt into the saddle. Lucan turned to Turold, who hefted the black banner. They nodded at each other. Lucan glanced at Alaric — the lad’s face was bright with sweat, but he, too, nodded.

“Remember, this is not a tourney,” Lucan instructed him gravely. “These Romans have come here to kill you. To kill all of us. And when we are gone, to enslave and despoil our families. There’s only one penalty for that… they must die.”

Alaric mopped the spittle from his lips, and lowered his visor.

THE WEST GULLY wherein Lucan and his household had been waiting contained the retinues of a many other illustrious names: Bors, Cador, Lanval, Bellangere, Daniel, Sagramore, Agravain, Galezzin, Tor and the two sons of the late King Pellinore, Lamorak and Aglovale — some six thousand men in total, all skilled and seasoned to battle.

They thundered down the gully at a canter, their horses picking up speed as the narrow passage widened out, finally emerging on the hillside to the rear of Arthur’s infantry. Briefly, Alaric lifted his visor to survey the scene. To their right, the longbow men were at rest — they didn’t want to strike their own men, and at any rate were surrounded by empty carts and wagons which earlier in the day had been piled with sheaves of arrows. Directly ahead, the infantry broke apart to create an aisle maybe fifty yards in width. Beyond that lay the open field, and a monstrous clutter of the dead, dying and maimed, stretching as far as the eye could see.

But the Romans were not yet at bay. Immense numbers were still to the fore. Their foot-companies clashed with Arthur’s infantry, and to the rear of those, more cavalry cohorts were advancing, although there were broad gaps between them.

As Arthur’s cavalry drove down through the carnage, their canter accelerated to a gallop, the rumble of their hooves amplifying to a thunderous roar. Alaric glanced left. There was no sign yet of the knights from the east gully.

At the point of the charge Lucan rode like the wind, his pace never flagging as the two forces meshed. One Roman horseman came against him after another, many armed with lances. He bore past them all, Heaven’s Messenger striking flesh and bone like a spear of flame. If they weren’t in his path, he veered towards them, his wolf-fur billowing. They drew blades and mattocks against him, but his sword always struck true, colossal strokes dispatching legionaries from this world as wind blows flies from a carcass. Even when he found himself amid a cluster of them, Heaven’s Messenger spun in a blur, smiting skulls, chopping necks. These were the men of the Eighth Legion, distinctive in their maroon livery. Expert horsemen by all accounts, masters of the sabre. But Lucan slew all he came to. He barely felt their retaliatory blows, barely noticed that his shield was soon broken or his mail rent and leaking blood. He slew and slew like a thing possessed, striking the blades from their hands, shearing through their corselets and helms.

Alaric could barely keep up. He too engaged with the Romans. He found their resistance strong, a genuine challenge; the savagery of this fight was a far cry from the practised skills and gallant courtesies of the tournament. He dispatched a couple, but in many places he only just managed to evade their slashing blades. A stinging blow from a chain-mace tore his visor away and almost knocked him senseless. He struck back, but his attention was divided between the honour of combat and the pursuit of his master, who he felt sure was now ranging the field like a spectre of death with but one target in mind.

Lucan was already halfway down the vale, much of the Roman horse having fallen back under the first onslaught of Arthur’s knights, when Alaric galloped up to him, pink-faced and sweating, blood dribbling from his broken nose. Lucan whipped around, fleetingly mistaking the lad for an enemy. Alaric reined back, but Lucan saw him in time and restrained his blow. Before they could speak, Alaric saw something else which distracted him. He pointed past Lucan’s shoulder, eyes wide. Lucan glanced around, and then removed his helmet. His sweat-soaked hair was streaked across his ghost-like features, and his steel-grey eyes gleamed like dagger-tips as they focused on the immense construction which had emerged from the Roman ranks and was now advancing ponderously towards them. It resembled a wheeled fortress, some forty yards across and maybe fourteen feet tall. It was built from solid timber and hung with shields, and had a battlemented upper rim. Even from this distance the earth seemed seemed to shake to its progress.

“My God!” Alaric stammered. “What… what is that?”

“A Hell-Breather,” Lucan replied grimly.

“A Hell-Breather?”

“I’ve heard about these things, but never actually seen one.”

“How does it move?”

“Inside it there’ll be maybe a hundred oxen yoked together, and their drivers. And elite troops, of course, waiting to burst out once it breaches our defences.”

The approaching monstrosity’s upper deck supported ballistae, onagers and packs of archers, who moved freely from one parapet to the other and were already busy picking off those of Arthur’s horsemen who’d been reckless enough to ride into range. However, its lower deck was even more heavily armed. From the front and on either side of it, great fire-tubes — cast-iron cylinders, their muzzles carved like dragons’ mouths — protruded from horizontal ports. Smoke poured out of them; inside the belly of the beast they’d be attached to cauldrons filled with bubbling, flaming mixtures of sulfur and pitch, constantly heated by glowing-hot coals, and immense pairs of bellows, which teams of sweating engineers would work frenziedly. The result was plumes of jetting fire, which could engulf any opponent venturing within thirty yards.

Alaric watched, aghast, as gouts of liquid death blazed out, men and their chargers tearing away shrieking as they turned into living torches. Those who evaded the flames were simply shot from their saddles by the archers on the roof. One fellow — Lucan recognised him as Crispin Roncesvalles, the messenger who had first brought news of the crisis — was struck by maybe six shafts at once. He’d have dropped to the ground had he not been sewn to his own saddle. His corpse hung limply, flopping back and forth, as his terrified animal bolted away.

Others of Lucan’s mesnie now rode up: Wulfstan, Turold, Gerwin, Brione, and Benedict. All were begrimed and bloodied.

“God’s bread,” Turold said. “Is that a Hell-Breather?”

The great machine was now about seventy yards away. They could hear the heavy trundle of its wheels and iron under-carriage, the creak and groan of its timber bulwarks.

“These machines are not invulnerable and have slow impetus,” Lucan said. “But if it reaches our line, the King’s position is compromised.”

“Lure it within range of our catapults,” Alaric suggested.

Lucan shook his head. “No. It would have won the Romans too much ground by then. Look what’s coming behind it.” Large numbers of Romans, mostly those who had fallen back under the British cavalry charge, were re-forming to its rear. “No,” he added. “We need to stop it here.”

He licked his lips as he studied the contraption, assessing it for any weakness. On campaign, Lucan always carried a rope and a grappling-hook; even now it hung in a coil alongside his saddle. But on this occasion that would make him too easy a target. He spied another way to gain entrance. The Hell-Breather’s front hoardings cleared the ground by about a foot and a half, to allow it to progress over a field littered with corpses; more than enough for Lucan’s purpose.

“Turold. Take any men you can gather and attack it from the west.”

“My lord?” Turold looked baffled and not a little frightened.

“Draw its archers’ attention away from the front. You hear me?”

Turold nodded and slammed down his visor.

“Alaric, go with him.” Lucan handed his reins over and dismounted. “And take Nightshade.”

Alaric looked startled. “You’re not taking that thing on alone, my lord? You could be killed!”

“We’re in the middle of a battle, Alaric. We could all be killed.”

“Everyone, follow me,” Turold shouted. He wheeled his animal around and commenced a wide, circling gallop westward of the vast machine. The others followed, including Alaric, now leading the riderless Nightshade. Arrows slanted towards them as they entered range; one of the gallopers at the rear — a straggler from another formation — was hit in the armpit and slumped sideways from his saddle.

The Hell-Breather, meanwhile, was drawing steadily closer.

Lucan replaced his helmet and lay down flat in its path, hoping to conceal himself among the many other sprawled, broken bodies. As furtively as he could, he slid Heaven’s Messenger from its scabbard and placed it by his side, one hand clasping its hilt. With a noise like the breaking of the heavens, the mechanism was now maybe twenty yards away from him. The ground quaked to the clanging of its undercarriage, to the squeal of its wheels, to the lowing and grunting of the animals inside.

Its front fire-tube was angled directly down at him. Lucan eyed it through his helm, and lay perfectly still, blinking away a sweat of terror. All it would take was one intense, prolonged blast of flame, and he would be liquefied inside his own armour. But no such order was issued. The only thing belching from the dragon-muzzle was smoke.

Its black shadow fell across Lucan. His body froze. He sensed the wooden skirting sliding across him, and suddenly he was inside it — where it was all darkness and seething heat, and a mingled stench of sweat, manure and sawdust. The hooves of lowing beasts hacked into the ground only inches from his body. He leapt up, sword brandished. His eyes were not attuned to the dimness, but navigating by the tiny chinks of light penetrating the hoardings, he could just distinguish the heavy forms of oxen, arrayed in rows on all sides and harnessed to an overhead framework of ropes and timbers. Two-handed, he swept his sword down onto the spine of the brute to his left and it dropped to its knees, bellowing in agony. His second blow fell in the same place on the ox to his right. This too stumbled and collapsed. He stepped over its carcass to strike the next one, and had dropped maybe six in a row before the oxen behind began to struggle and the great machine came to a shuddering halt. A Roman drover wearing only leather breeks clambered across the rigging to see what the problem was. Lucan sprang up and thrust Heaven’s Messenger into his belly, ripping the blade sideways so the drover’s entrails gushed out, before hauling him down.

Lucan clambered upward himself, ascending via a trapdoor.

The first deck was divided into compartments, each enclosed with timber partitions but crammed with a scaffold of joists and supports to support its own fire-tube. In the first one he entered, loincloth-clad engineers were too busy to notice him, adding fresh ingredients to the mix bubbling in the great cauldron or hanging on the bellows. Above them, an officer swung in his harness, peering down the length of the tube. They were eight men in total, and four had died before they knew what was happening, dispatched with single sword strokes to their skulls and necks.

One of the remainder cast a ladle of scalding pitch in Lucan’s direction, spattering him and sizzling in his wolf-fur. Lucan cut the fellow’s legs from beneath him, and disembowelled him as he lay screaming. Another charged with a firebrand. Lucan severed the offending hand at the wrist with his sword, and drove his dagger into the fellow’s gullet. When he turned again the others had fled, including the operator. They would be seeking help, and it would be close at hand. In fact, at the rear of the compartment, a ladder led down to sunlight, and with much gruff shouting, an armoured legionary was already climbing, with another behind him, and a third behind that. With two blows of his sword, Lucan severed the ladder’s mooring, sending it crashing down amid the lowing, stamping oxen, the troopers falling with it.

Another ladder led up, and Lucan climbed it swiftly, emerging onto the upper deck. Its broad wooden surface was covered with a gluey resin, so that men could move about without sliding or falling as the engine rocked. Runnels had been cut in the deck, and filled with large stones and rocks to be used as missiles. There were also stockpiles of arrows, tied in bundles. On all sides, catapult and ballista crews — three men to each mechanism — worked feverishly, spokes banging and oily gears ratcheting as they loaded and shot repeatedly. Aside from these, there were fifteen archers, each armed with a double-curved composite bow. Thanks to Turold and his party, riding back and forth to the west as if seeking a way to approach, they had concentrated on that battlement, but Lucan wouldn’t have long.

The nearest machine was an arbalest — a great crossbow designed to discharge twelve cloth-yard bolts at the same time — and it had just been reloaded. Its crew remained unaware of Lucan even as he struck them, sheathing his dagger behind one’s ear, cleaving the nape of another’s neck, and tipping the third one over the parapet. The other Romans on the deck now discovered him, but not before he knocked loose the pivot-peg holding the arbalest in place, swung it around, took aim and unleashed all twelve bolts at the perfectly aligned row of archers, every one striking a target.

The remaining engineers came at Lucan with mauls and mattocks, but only a couple wore mail shirts or corselets, and none wore helmets. He hewed his way among them, lopping necks, slicing limbs. When Heaven’s Messenger was briefly knocked from his grasp, he snatched the mace from over his shoulder and dealt out skull-crushing impacts. Only two survived his onslaught; they fled down to the lower deck, yelling.

Lucan moved to the western battlement. He signalled to Turold, who, marshalling the rest of his men, charged courageously. Directly below Lucan, another fire-tube raised itself to meet them. He looked to his right, where an onager rested on a heavy frame. It was so bulky that most normal men would have trouble moving it on their own, let alone lifting it. But such minor issues had no place on a day like today. Throwing away his mace and sliding Heaven’s Messenger back into its scabbard, Lucan took the onager by its windlass, and with much scraping of wood and groaning of iron, dragged it out of position and shoved it against the west battlement. With every inch of strength in his body, he levered it up, bending his legs, straightening his back, the muscles in his arms, chest and shoulders screaming in agony, until he’d angled it fully upright. And then he pushed it.

It fell heavily, rolling, and struck the barrel of the fire-tube with a resounding clang, buckling it and bending it double — just as a massive gout of flame was about to be expelled at Turold. With an explosive whoosh, the white-hot payload back-drafted through the blocked tube, engulfing its entire crew, blazing up around the officer in his command chair, blooming through the entire interior of the Hell-Breather — accompanied by the shrieks of men and beasts.

Coughing on scorching smoke, the deck smouldering under his feet, Lucan vaulted over the battlement and hung full length by his fingers. It was still a drop of seven feet. The landing was difficult, the wind driven from Lucan’s body, but he had the strength to roll away. The next thing he was on his feet, tottering in the direction of his mesnie, who had reined up and were watching in astonishment as this machine, by which the Romans had many a time cleared paths through hordes of foes, ground to a standstill, flames blossoming from every aperture.

Lucan swung up into his saddle and noticed the wide spaces around them. It was almost as if there’d been a lull in the fighting. Stragglers from both sides staggered back and forth, some disoriented and battle-shocked, others dazed by the pain of wounds. But the majority of Arthur’s cavalry contingents appeared to be falling back en masse. Not so the Romans. There were still fragmented groups of them on the higher ground, but these were the remnants of larger companies, and now, cut off by the cavalry charge, had been unable to retreat. Some were still fighting, but most were marooned in no man’s land, awaiting the next Roman advance, which, given that Arthur’s cavalry had recoiled, looked imminent. In fact, javelins began to fall close by, and Lucan’s mesnie turned to see fresh cohorts of Romans marching towards them, men who had not yet been in the fight coming rank upon rank.

It seemed incredible to Alaric that they could have killed so many, and that such an uncountable number could remain, footmen and cavalry. Their arms and armour glinted, undimmed by dust or blood.

“No wonder everyone else has retreated,” Benedict said in a voice of woe.

“Don’t be fooled,” Wulfstan replied. “No-one’s retreated. This is merely a feint. A ploy to pull them forward, drag them onto the spearhead of our reserve.”

Lucan took a last look at the Hell-Breather, now a blackened, blazing framework, then he wheeled Nightshade around and headed back to the lines, calling his men to follow.

When Emperor Lucius saw Arthur’s cavalry withdrawing, he announced that he would personally lead the pursuit. His senior officers advised against this, but though Lucius knew full well that he had had suffered catastrophic losses, he only needed to look around to see that he still had more than enough warriors in harness to inundate the Britons’ position. He thus ordered the trumpets to sound, clanged his visor down, levelled his lance and galloped forward at such a tilt that it was all his officers could do to stay abreast. Company by company, the units of the Eighth and Fourteenth Legions fell in alongside him, creating a broad battle-line which bristled with lances and drawn sabres.

“Protect the Emperor!” went the cry to his rear.

The Roman infantry regiments, including those beaten back and exhausted, some with less than a third of their number remaining, were thus goaded to charge again — this time at double-speed, running rather than walking, despite their weight of arms and armour. But they were advancing behind their own cavalry screen, so their view of the vale’s north end was concealed — and they did not see the infantry ranks on Arthur’s east flank shuffle aside, creating an open passage from which a fresh stream of horsemen issued.

This was the other half of Arthur’s chivalrous host: the mounted portion of the Familiaris Regis, King Hoel and his Breton knights, and those other Knights of the Round Table who had not yet entered the fray: Tristan, Hector, Dornar, Caradoc, Udain, Ider, Palomides, Urre, Lavain, Gareth and Griflet — another six thousand combatants, and at their head the fearsome forms of Lancelot du Lac and his mesnie, distinctive for their leopard badges and their blue and white livery. At the same time, the cavalry force that had retreated, which if Emperor Lucius had only looked he would see was still largely intact, wheeled around and came back pell-mell into the action.

Arthur, Kay and Bedivere, anchoring the centre of the infantry line, also mounted up. Arthur raised his royal banner so that it streamed in the hot, gusting wind, and blew a single blast on his battle-horn. He lowered his standard and charged, and the infantry line went with him. Howling like a barbarian horde of old, the whole army of the Britons surged down the slope of the Vale of Sessoine.

Their mounted companies engaged first, Lancelot projecting himself into battle at the spear-point. With his first contact, he impaled a Roman general through the breast with his lance. In the same motion he drew his sword, slicing throats in all directions. Roman horsemen fell around him without even realising who or what had slain them.

Lucan, on the other flank, was the next into battle, careering through the enemy cavalry with abandon, laying to his left and right, Heaven’s Messenger soon slathered with gore not just the length of its blade, but up and over its hilt. He now engaged with Roman horsemen wearing orange livery. They showed skill and courage, but his rage grew inexorably. Heaven’s Messenger twirled about his head as he struck and parried and fended and butchered, carving his way through line after line of these handsome fellows, oblivious to their counter-blows, feeling only the ache in his sword-arm.

So furious was his charge, and the charge of all those others like him, that even the fresher Roman ranks dissolved into complete disorder, horsemen falling back among their infantry, orders being issued to no-one, which made it even easier for Arthur’s men, who, by comparison, were so well organised for war that their horses were trained to fight alongside their masters. Nightshade was in the thick of the combat; the noble brute reared at a clutch of Roman footmen who came at it with pikes, its iron-shod hooves ploughing into their helms, smashing their face-plates, pulverising the features beneath.

In the heat of battle the Knights of the Round Table knew no retreat. Forward, ever forward, was their motto — so, though the Romans ranked in front of them grew denser and denser, still they chopped their way among them. Lucan had his entire pack at his heels: Turold, Wulfstan, Guthlac, Gerwin, Cadelaine, Brione, Alaric and many others, flailing on the enemy with their blades and mattocks. Blood flowed in torrents as mailed and plated bodies fell on top of each other. Riderless steeds shrieked insanely, rampaging back and forth, causing more mayhem.

In the midst of this chaos, Lucan came upon a Roman horseman he recognised: a short, portly fellow encased in gilded armour cut with elaborate patterns — though, separated from his followers, he had now reined his steed and thrown down his weapons. He lifted his visor to reveal a plump, purple face and strands of long, red-grey hair: Ardeus Vigilano, Duke of Spoleto. His charger was in a dreadful state, broken arrow husks protruding from its sides, its head hung low, blood gushing from its nostrils. Spoleto himself could only raise one arm in surrender, for the other was punctured through the elbow by an arrow.

“I’m your prisoner!” the duke pleaded. “Whoever you are, brave knight of Albion, I throw myself on your mercy. My family will pay you a king’s ransom for my safe return. They will make you the wealthiest man in the whole of Christendom.”

Lucan hesitated only a second before ramming Heaven’s Messenger into Spoleto’s gargling mouth, and twisting it so that teeth and bone shattered.²⁶ “All I ever had or wanted you people took from me!” snarled a bestial voice that Lucan himself barely recognised. “You can never repay it… except with your souls.”

The slaughtered nobleman fell to the ground, and Lucan dug his spurs into Nightshade’s flanks, driving the animal on.

“My God!” Turold shouted, lifting his visor. He, too, was gashed and scarred, his mail rent, blood streaking his black mantle. Alaric reined alongside him in a similar state. Turold indicated Spoleto’s corpse. “That suit of armour alone could pay the household wages for an entire year.”

“We can collect the bounty later,” Alaric said, standing in his stirrups to locate their lord, once again fearful that Heaven’s Messenger might now fall on a gentler head.

Turold laughed. “Aye… unless some camp-following scullion’s beaten us to it. Can’t you sense it, lad? We’re winning.”

He slammed his visor closed and urged his mount forward. Alaric followed.

In fact, the army of Albion was not winning the battle — not yet.

Numerically, they were still outmatched, though they had the momentum thanks to the downhill charge. The morale of New Rome’s finest was strained by the prolonged fight and by the sight of so many comrades-in-arms lying drowned in gore and filth. But the real turn of the tide only came fifteen minutes later, when King Arthur spotted the banner of Imperial Rome just ahead of him. Seated on his horse, fully armoured, but with visor open and mouth agape as he witnessed the slow destruction of all his dreams, was Emperor Lucius Julio Bizerta. An entire phalanx of mounted bodyguards had drawn up around him, clad toe to crown in the black enamel plate of the old Praetorian Guard, maces and falchions in their fists.

Arthur glanced to his right. Kay was still close, and Lancelot was ranging towards them. His horse, much bloodied, had to pick its way through the piles of mangled corpses. Arthur signalled to both and indicated the Imperial bodyguard. They nodded and, hunching forward, entered into a full gallop, in the midst of which Arthur and Tristan joined them.

The two small companies clashed with explosive force, sparks flashing, splinters flying from shattered lances. The Emperor’s bodyguards fought valiantly, but compared with Arthur and his knights were little more than human shields. The first shock of impact saw two of them eliminated, one skewered through the groin, the other with his left arm cloven at the shoulder. The remainder rained blows on their assailants, but for every contact they made, Arthur’s men made two or three, and very quickly the last few Praetorians fell from their saddles, blood spouting from joints in their armour.

Emperor Lucius was alone, fists tight on the reins of his terrified horse, his pale face lathered with sweat, his green eyes bulging as they fixed on the ferocious horseman confronting him — a horseman who could only be the King of the Britons.

“Your time has come, hell hound!” Arthur said, snapping up his visor.

“You crazed, barbarian beast!” the Emperor shrieked. “It was my destiny to rule.”

“And it was mine to draw a sword from a stone, and now to plant it in another.”

Arthur plunged Excalibur forward. Lucius attempted to deflect it, but Arthur’s aim was the stronger and surer. The Emperor’s sabre broke, and the longsword pierced his breastplate and the breastbone beneath it, and the beating heart beneath that. Lucius’s head hinged backward in a silent shriek, a crimson font arcing from his lips.

An age might have passed as he hung there, and then the mightiest man in the world toppled slowly from his saddle. When he struck the ground he was cold clay.

Tristan seized the Imperial banner and held it aloft, howling in triumph.

The word spread through the Romans’ tattered ranks like a wildfire.

Some refused to accept it, and strove on, slashing in all directions, still taking lives, but ultimately being dragged from their saddles or cut from their feet. The rest — the vast majority — turned and fled in a gargantuan, chaotic mob, causing more pain and destruction en route, horses maddened with fear driving through clumps of hapless infantry, bounding across the carpet of wounded and dying, their hooves impacting in flesh and bone as though it were soft mulch. So pressed together was the staggering horde, that it would only take one arrow to bring a man down, and maybe fifty others would trip over the top of him, to be trampled in the panic. Even men of rank fell victim to this pandemonium. One such was the wounded Prince Jalhid, whose bier was overturned in the stampede; before his bodyguards could reach him, feet, the hooves of horses and even the wheels of carriages had furrowed his body.

Arthur’s knights cantered among the fleeing droves, hacking and spearing. His infantry followed, swarming across the mounds of wounded, finishing them off with blades and clubs. They would continue in this fashion until the order was given to cease, though orders did not traverse easily over so chaotic a field. For maybe an hour after Arthur sent the word that only those Romans still armed were to be offered no quarter, the massacre continued. The British archers, who had now replenished their ammunition, also gave chase, loosing shafts willy-nilly, bringing down one man after another; it was almost sport for them — they laughed and joked.

Ironically, it was mainly those Romans who had advanced far up-field who were spared. Broken up, now, into small groups and isolated from each other in the sea of corpses, they knew they could never reach safety, and so downed their arms and offered surrender. Most of these were wounded anyway, or their weapons were blunted, so they simply sat and put their hands behind their heads. Some gibbered and wept; others knelt in prayer as Arthur’s cavalry encircled them.

Not everyone was ready to end the fight. Lucan rode hither and thither, chopping down any Roman he encountered who, by accident or design, still held weapons. “Rufio!” he bellowed, tearing off his helmet. “Felix Rufio, where are you?”

No-one answered this challenge, but still, here and there, he had cause to vent his wrath. A party of six legionaries — filthied and bloodied — knelt up and asked for mercy as Bedivere and other knights dismounted to take their surrender. One legionary, whose entire front was blistered by naphtha, begged for water. As Bedivere handed over a bottle, the fellow produced a gladius and slashed out, lopping the knight’s left hand off at the wrist.

Bedivere fell backward, gasping, and his squire, Percival, wove a cloak over the stump, but the rest of his retainers raised spears and swords, to shrieks and moans from the six Romans. “Enough!” Bedivere called hoarsely. “Enough… these men have surrendered. It’s battle-madness, nothing more.”

“Indeed,” replied Lucan, who had witnessed the incident and leapt from his saddle. He hefted Heaven’s Messenger. “’Twould be madness to leave it at that!” With six brutal blows, he split each captive to the teeth.

Bedivere, white-faced and shuddering, could only fix his brother with a baleful stare. “Do you feel better now?”

“I’ll feel better when we’ve made raven-food of them all,” Lucan replied. He glanced at Percival, a handsome Welsh lad. “That wound needs cauterising, or he’ll bleed to death before you get him to surgeon Tud. Take fire to it, or hot metal. And don’t stint.”

The squire nodded and supervised the carrying-away of his now insensible master.

Lucan re-mounted Nightshade and rode back across the field, calling for Rufio.

“I can tell you where Rufio is, Earl Lucan!” sounded a feeble voice.

Lucan turned in his saddle, and saw another bunch of prisoners seated nearby. These were of a less unruly order, and were in the charge of Arthur’s Familiaris. They, too, were bedraggled and bloodied; their arms and armour had been stripped from them and now they were roped together. Lucan dismounted again, but this time his sword remained sheathed. The Roman who had called was recognisable, though at first Lucan was unsure why — and then he remembered. It was Quintus Maximion, the tribune he had spoken to during the feast at Camelot. The once dignified commander was now a sorry sight, one eye swollen like a plum, the bridge of his nose cut to the cartilage, his right forearm deeply slashed. He wore only his maroon breeches, his sandals, and a ragged vest covered with grime and sweat.

Lucan surveyed him grimly. “I believe I warned you this could happen.”

Maximion nodded. “That is so.”

He seemed less devastated by the disaster than his comrades. He gave an air of frank, weary acceptance.

“You say you know where I can find Felix Rufio?”

“I’ve a good idea.”

“Now would be the time to tell me.”

“I had no love for Felix Rufio before, and I have even less now. But I have a price. The whipped dogs you see around me are the sole remnant of my command. These men have fought hard. In the cause of an arrogant madman, I agree, but nevertheless, they showed loyalty and courage. They do not deserve the fate they fear will befall them.”

Lucan cast his eye over the clutch of prisoners. They remained seated, heads bowed. None could meet his gaze. It was possible they’d seen him wreak his gruesome execution on the small band who had assaulted Bedivere, but more probably they had been fed propaganda by their Emperor about the doom facing any who fell into Arthur’s grasp.

“If their surrender is genuine,” Lucan said, “if they make no effort to escape or resist, they have nothing to fear. They will be held as prisoners. Once the war is over, the common men will be released. Those of rank and title may be held for ransom, but they’ll not be mistreated. That is not the way in Camelot.”

Maximion nodded. “Such things I have heard. But can you give your guarantee?”

Lucan turned to the centenar whose platoon stood guard over the group. “These are your prisoners, captain?”

The centenar nodded warily. “That’s correct, my lord.”

“I need a firm guarantee that none of these men will be harmed.”

“That’s the rule across the entire army, my lord.”

“I need your guarantee regarding this particular group.”

“Of course.”

“If any of them are hurt, you and your men will answer to me. Is that understood?”

The centenar looked a little disconcerted. There were few in the royal household who had not heard about the Black Wolf of the North. “As I say, my lord… of course.”

“This one” — Lucan pointed at Maximion — “is now my prisoner. Cut him loose.”

“As you wish, my lord.”

Lucan strolled away, leading Nightshade by the bridle. Maximion limped after him, rubbing at the weals on his wrists.

“What of your three sons?” Lucan asked.

“Only one was present today. I know not where he is, but I fear the worst.”

“Where is Felix Rufio?”

“He fled the battle early.”

“How early?”

“During your second charge. His cohorts were demolished by it. I think he also took one look at you… scything through his ranks like a black whirlwind, and his nerve broke.”

“He fled the field alone?”

“Some of his men went with him. Maybe thirty. His closest companions.”

“And where will Rufio and these thirty companions have fled to?”

Maximion shrugged. “Wherever he is, it won’t be long before he learns that Emperor Lucius is dead and the dream that was New Rome in ashes.”

Lucan was surprised. “Surely you’ll rally to fight us again? You still have forces in Brittany.”

Maximion shook his head. “Most of the Senate and the High Command — those beyond the Emperor’s select band of flatterers — were questioning this reconquest long ago. The sheer cost of maintaining it, even had Albion surrendered, would have been prodigious. It won’t take much to persuade those who are left to go home in peace.”

“And where is home for Felix Rufio?”

“He owns two houses, to my knowledge. One is in Rome, one in Tuscany. You’ll easily locate both, and he knows that. Hence there’s only one refuge left for him now — his ancestral home, Castello Malconi in the mountains north of Italy.”

“He has a castle as well?”

“His family are the Dukes of Orobi. His mother, Zalmyra, currently holds the title. She presides over Castello Malconi, which guards one of the highest passes.”

“So he abandoned his troops to the slaughter… and ran home to his mother?” Lucan looked genuinely perplexed. “And this is the creature my wife abandoned me for?”

“Be warned, Earl Lucan. Zalmyra is no ordinary mother. She has many cruel arts at her command.”

“No matter,” Lucan replied. “So do I.”