The archer creeping along at Stirling's heels took down another sentry, catching this one through the throat with his deadly aim. The man thrashed down with a choked gurgle and went still after no more than two feeble kicks of his feet. Heart pounding, Stirling eased past the body, gaining at last the line where the Saxons' supply wagons had been parked for the duration of the siege. The draft horses had been tied for the night just beyond the heavily laden wagons. He held his long dagger in his teeth, ignoring the coppery taste from the blood of the Saxon he'd killed with it, and slipped open the satchel strapped to his back.
He lifted out one of the clay pots inside, upending its mixture of pitch, sulphur, tow, frankincense, and sawdust across the nearest wagon's contents, then crept to the next wagon in line, repeating the action until Emrys Myrddin's combustible compound had drenched the contents of ten Saxon wagons. That done, Stirling slipped around to the picket line of horses, hushing them as they whickered, patting velvety noses and thick-muscled necks. He cut the lines with his dagger, then slipped back to the nearest campfire, where he paused, waiting for the signal from the summit.
A moment later it came, as each of the teams tugged on their guidelines, signaling their readiness. Light flashed from the top of the watchtower, lantern light that glowed like a star in the inky darkness. Stirling grinned, then thrust his torch into the coals. It caught with a flare of red-gold light. Sprinting now, he ran from wagon to wagon, setting Myrddin's surprise alight. Flames roared in a great whoosh as the Greek fire ignited. Horses screamed, plunging away from the sudden spread of flames, running in panic, bolting with their cut tether lines across the great, dark plain.
Stirling let go a bloodcurdling yell and dashed back through the Saxons' camp, setting fire to tents as he ran. Wagons blazed for hundreds of yards along the Saxons' outer perimeter, spelling utter ruin for the besieging army. Grinning like a madman, Stirling fired more tents, gained the guideline, and shouted, "To the walls! To the walls, my bonny Britons!" Men came running through the blazing camp, Saxons milling in terror and confusion, Briton soldiers making a purposeful dash for the trailing guidelines.
"Move, move, move!"
Men scrambled past, climbing the muddy hillside. Overhead, the Saxon kings had burst out of their pavilion tent. Stirling's Sarmatian archer lit an arrow wrapped with oil-soaked rushes and fired high into the night air. The flaming missile whistled through the blackness and landed squarely atop the kings' tent. Fire spread in greedy tongues and rivers across the top of the cloth pavilion. Shouts of anger and panic spread through the group milling inside. Stirling's men climbed at a fast jog, bursting amongst the confused Saxons with whoops of savage glee. The kings scattered into the night, shouting for assistance.
"Leave them to run!" Stirling bellowed, urging his men back toward the summit.
Within minutes, they were safely back inside the walls, while below, fire blazed in a gaudy ring all the way around the base of Badon Hill. Cadorius was waiting to pound his back in delight. "By God's holy beard, you've done it! Look at them!"
Saxons were running in wild confusion, silhouetted against the blazing camp, trying with ragged, disjointed coordination to catch the scattering horses, to douse the flames consuming their supplies, their tents, and their caches of weapons. Britons, roused from sleep by the wild shouts below, were cheering in the night, whistling and laughing in open merriment. Stirling couldn't stop grinning, although he did pause long enough to order a trumpeter to blow the rally signal. Deep notes sang out across the hill fort's walls, a summons which brought Stirling's raiders running to report.
Of the fifty men he'd sent down in teams of ten, forty-eight had returned safely. One had been killed, his body dragged back by his comrades for proper burial. Another had been wounded and was receiving care from the camp's healers. The glow in his men's eyes closed Stirling's throat for a moment. In all his years of service to king and country, not one soldier had ever looked at him with such proud confidence in his leadership. Go back? a portion of his mind whispered to itself. Go back, when I'm needed here and now? Memory of the butchered women and children left to rot by Cutha and his Saxon cutthroats floated behind Stirling's eyelids. No. He could not go back. Not now. Not ever.
He hoped to God his family and his commander in the SAS would understand.
"I am deeply proud in your courage and skill this night," Stirling said in a voice that shook a little. "I have never served with finer men. It is my privilege and honor to fight at your side."
A roar went up from the watching Britons.
Princess Iona, cheeks wet and grey eyes brilliant in the firelight, smiled through her tears, then moved quietly away, clearly wanting to be alone with her grief. Stirling watched her go. Nothing he did, nothing these brave men did, could ever undo the damage the Saxons had already wrought. But they could prevent further butchery. Stirling swore an oath to God and whatever host of angels might be listening.
I will not fail these people. To the last of my strength, the last breath in my body, I will not fail them. This, I swear by all I hold holy.
Vow cast, Stirling saw his men well fed, plied with good wine, and then sought his bed, knowing full well the vengeance the Saxons would wreak, come the dawn.
Chapter Eighteen
Morgana had never been to Ireland.
When the Irish coast rose out of the stormy grey sea, frissons of mingled apprehension and excitement shot through her, while Brenna McEgan gazed at that coast with such homesick longing, it brought tears to their shared eyes. They arrived in a grand flotilla of Dalriadan warships, manned by every able-bodied Scotti farmholder and fisherman left alive. The disaster visited upon Dunadd had not touched the countryside, thank God, the farmholds being too scattered for Banning to have reached their vulnerable water supplies.
Enraged Dalriadans had answered the king's summons from miles around, gathering nearly three hundred strong to pursue vengeance. King Dallan mac Dalriada had insisted, however, that they sail first to Eire, to raise more sword hands from their Irish kinfolk. And so they had turned their prows west, across the narrow North Channel toward lands that one day would be called County Antrim and County Down.
Brenna had listened very hard to the conversation of the Irish sailors and soldiers on Dallan mac Dalriada's flagship. Her grandmother had taught her a fair bit of Gaelic. She'd forgotten much of it over the years, but listening to the Scotti clansmen, it began to return to her, although many of the words and most of the pronunciations were unfamiliar. By the time they sailed into the upper reaches of Belfast Lough, the broad estuary which speared some ten miles inland from the coast, Brenna was picking up whole conversations.
Tears prickled in her eyes again when Belfast rose out of the mists, a thriving settlement of several thousand, judging by the smoke curling up from cottage hearths. The achingly familiar profile of Cave Hill rose like a sentinel north of the town. Brenna had explored the hill during school holidays, catching a ride with older cousins who had licenses to drive. Five artificial caves had been dug into that craggy hill by Neolithic inhabitants, for what purpose, only those long-dead people could have explained. They'd seemed magical caves to Brenna and her cousins, three of whom had since died in the violent Troubles, two of them not even making it to their twentieth birthdays.
South of the town, some three miles from the harbor, Brenna could just make out the shape of the Giant's Ring, one of the most impressive ancient monuments anywhere in Ireland. Nearly six hundred sixty feet in diameter, the standing stones were enclosed by an earthen bank fifteen feet high and more than twenty feet across. The dolmen at the center stood guard over a Stone Age burial site. She wondered what the Iron Age Irish chieftains ruling Belfast village used it for? In later centuries, it had become a popular spot for horse racing.