With a brief, exasperated sigh, and a couple of deep breaths, he slowly got back up to his feet. Even though the horizon had grown noticeably lighter, Janus meandered back towards the sheltered porch at the entryway into the longhouse of Ayenwatha’s Firaken clan.
Janus no longer had any interest in watching the sun rise.
AETHELSTAN
A small number of higher, bell-shaped tents stood in the midst of a much greater number of elongated ridge-tents arrayed far outward from them. The various tents were now the quarters of a modest host of Saxan warriors, culled from Wessachia and some of the province’s immediate border areas.
The dark of the advanced night shrouded the brighter color of the painted, canvas panels upon the larger tents. Most of the bigger tents were currently empty, as the senior thanes who occupied them were now gathered together within Aethelstan’s tent, located near to the direct center of the woodland encampment.
The march to the glen had gone about as smoothly as could be reasonably hoped. The outer muster points had joined their numbers to Aethelstan’s column towards the end of the trek, continuing a favorable trend as a nearly complete response to the given levy summons had been achieved.
Following the addition of the very last muster point, nearly three thousand men in total had journeyed together for the last stretch. It had taken the better part of another day’s hard marching through the wolds to reach the area that the Saxan scouts had identified as a propitious encampment site.
Following the end of the long march, a fair number of scouts continued to work diligently and tirelessly to acquire every last bit of information that they could.
A few of the scouts had set out to try to contact those living in the villages and hamlets just inside Count Einhard’s lands to the immediate west. Most fighting men had long since departed with the greater levies, but the observations of those left behind were just as valuable. A village woman or an elderly craftsman could, just as easily as a man in his prime, take note of any unusual happenings in the vicinity of their abodes.
Other scouts boldly scoured the lands right up to the very banks of the Grenzen River, searching for any sign of an approaching enemy.
A few more had carefully surveyed the lands near the edges of Wessachia, to select the best terrain possible for defense, and the most likely routes for enemy incursions.
Upon the column’s arrival, the encampment had been efficiently deployed among the trees of the glen. It was a very scenic locale, ringed by hills that fractured the slanting rays of the setting sun. A creek, of moderate size with a gentle current, wended through the midst of the low ground, providing an ample water source for the camp’s occupants.
A few trout had already been seen swimming within the clear waters. The discovery quickly prompted a couple of men to occupy themselves with setting baited hooks to lines of nettle-hemp, even in the last light of the day. Another few men attended to the placement of a wicker-trap, the nearly five foot long object well-suited to capturing an array of a Saxan river’s common denizens.
As the enemy’s presence was not yet imminent, the thanes wasted little time in getting some weapons training organized and underway with the farmers, artisans, and others who had responded to the summons of the General Fyrd. They were hardy, tough men as a whole, woven of an excellent fiber, but they were not given to regular practice in forming up in a shield wall or wielding a combat spear.
Many of the common men were very capable archers, having regularly hunted in the woods near their own villages and hamlets. Such archers would become very valuable in the coming fight.
Yet besides the bow and arrow, it was no mystery that most of the villagers still required much more formal practice in martial skills, where the axe was no longer a tool for menial daily tasks, but rather a weapon for war.
When night fell at last, most everyone was dismissed from their labors and training to seek some rest and sustenance, although the tasks of the higher-ranking thanes were not yet done.
A number of disturbing signs had been recently emerging, heavily burdening the minds of those currently gathered with Aethelstan. At the present moment, the thanes had been assembled in the tent for well over an hour, anxiously hoping for further reports to arrive while discussing the grave matters at hand.
“Your concerns are not without cause. It is certain that far too many scouts have not come back. But take another look. I believe that it is no mere coincidence that most of the scouts that have not returned were sent into this very region,” Aethelstan commented.
Already in a terse mood, he looked down somberly towards the crude parchment map spread out before him. It was illuminated by the steady light of a beeswax candle that was set in a holder just next to it.
Rendered on a single sheet of average quality parchment, the small map outlined Wessachia and its border territories. Aethelstan ran his finger slowly over a specific area on the map, indicating the forested hills arrayed just in advance of the headwaters of the Grenzen River.
Though the parchment map was rather simple in its display, it was quickly proving to be a very valuable and welcome gift. It had come from an elderly monk, who resided in the esteemed monastery of Jafarne, located in the neighboring province of Wesvald. It had already become of great use to Aethelstan, both in his planning and in conferences with the other thanes.
He silently pondered the general area where the bulk of the missing scouts had recently disappeared, working to grasp some further insights beyond what his instincts had already told him.
One scout had managed to return from the disconcerting region. Aethelstan had met with the scout privately upon his return, just before the larger conference had taken place. The lone scout had traveled far enough to reach the outlying edges of the marches that bordered Wessachia to the southwest. The area was situated just a little farther away from the core area of Aethelstan’s concern, where most of the scouts were vanishing.
The scout had taken a more circuitous route upon his return, avoiding the less traveled woods right along the Wessachian border. In Aethelstan’s eyes, it was likely a decision that had inadvertently spared the fortunate scout’s life.
The great thane was enormously thankful for the scout’s successful return, for the scout’s own sake as well as the precious information that had been gleaned. The scout had brought back some very disturbing tidings with him, mostly gathered from a visit to one of the easternmost march forts.
Word had come to the scout of entire horse-mounted patrols, of the kind sent out from the fort garrisons for routine forays, not returning. The number of horse-mounted couriers arriving at the march fort had also dropped sharply in the recent few weeks.
As patrols disappeared and arrivals declined, occupants of the fort had quickly noted that the riders continuing to arrive safely were those coming in from the direct north, south, or southeast.
A few unusually large clusters of sky warriors had been reported within the same period, witnessed in the skies high over the western marches. They had curiously kept their distance from the march forts. They had not visited, or even come anywhere near to the garrisons, as Saxan sky warriors traditionally would have whenever they were within the marches.
A couple men of the garrison had commented to the Wessachian scout that these distantly observed clusters had appeared to be flying in an unusual formation. Instead of flying abreast of each other, or in a discernibly spear-headed type of formation, the observed groups had been crossing the skies in a loose throng.
A few other garrison men had then remarked that the steeds especially appeared to have a different profile in comparison to the winged Saxan mounts that the garrison men had observed on many occasions before.