The first group we approached, a huddle of twelve men, bunched together even more closely as they watched us coming. But then, when we had halved the distance separating us from them and just before I urged my horse into a canter, when I was beginning to think they might break and run, they split apart and began running awkwardly towards us in a pincer movement, weapons drawn, evidently intent upon surrounding us. As soon as they did so, others who had been watching made shift to join them. I sank my spurs into Germanicus, feeling him surge beneath me.
"They're going to fight! Keep moving, through them and back again. They won't last long."
Nor did they. Three of them died on first contact, two on the spears of my companions and one by my flail, picked up and cast away like a shattered doll, his metal breastplate crushed and ruined by the iron clang of my backhanded, over-arm blow. I had already chosen my next target, but as he saw me look at him and sway my horse towards him, he turned and fled, his feet skidding and sliding in the treacherous, thick mud beneath his feet. I caught up with him in moments, towering above him. I could see his panic in the way he ran, cowering and flinching, cringing from my anticipated blow. Much in me wished to spare his life, to let him go, but there was a clarion need, too, in my mind, to demonstrate that we were here apurpose and were to be reckoned with. Clemency now might—and almost certainly would— be construed as weakness. I swung, hard, whirling the ball high and pulling it over and down and around even harder, backhanded, so that it struck the running man between the shoulders, rising upward, driving the breath and life from him in an audible grunt, smashing his spine and lifting him off his feet to throw him forward, his arms outstretched, to fall sprawling in the mud.
Now I reined in Germanicus, seeing the fleeing Ersemen everywhere. My companions had already stopped and were all watching me. I wheeled my horse and moved back towards the road, and the others fell into place beside and behind me as I passed. All of us knew now what needed to be done; we had to ride to Ravenglass immediately and hope that we were not too late and not too few to help. I stood in my stirrups and waved to Lars in the distant wagon to come now and follow us, and then we were on the move again, all five of us filling the width of the roadway as we rode abreast.
Eyes moving constantly, alert to the danger of entrapment and lurking bowmen, we traversed the short length of forest-lined road between the first of the fields and the outermost edge of the town that had grown up beyond the walls of the harbour fort. At the town itself, we reined our horses to a stop. Nothing moved anywhere, nor was there any sound to be heard except the clatter of one set of hooves from behind us, where Longinus appeared, riding Shelagh's mount, pale-faced and tense with the effort of clinging on to the moving animal. I had no need to ask why he was here; Ravenglass was his home, and his place was there, commanding its artillery. I took hold of his horse's bridle as he clattered up to us and stopped.
"the outer town's deserted." Rufio's voice was rough. "They've all gone inside the walls."
"Aye, but why? I can't see any reason, can you? There's no threat here, no enemy."
Longinus was looking around him as he spoke, as were we all, and it seemed he was right. We were the only people in the outer town. We moved forward, alert for any sign of danger, and as we approached the walls of the fort itself," the missing sounds of the town began to make themselves heard from the safety of the other side. Then I saw movement above and realized that, for the first time since our arrival the previous year, the eastern walls of Ravenglass were manned. The guards were alert, too, but there seemed to be little urgency in their demeanour. They had recognized Longinus immediately, and the outer gates swung open to admit us. Longinus dismounted at once, nodding to me as he handed me the reins of his horse, then made his way swiftly and directly, I had no doubt, to the distant western wall and his beloved catapults.
Relieved that there seemed to be no immediate danger, Ambrose left at once to return and escort Ludmilla, who would, he knew, be concerned about what had been happening, and Donuil accompanied him to rejoin Shelagh for the same reasons. The rest of us, Dedalus, Rufio and I, entered the fort together and went looking for Derek, our ears and minds filled with overheard snatches of conversation and conjectures describing the storm, wrecked galleys and drowned men.
We found Derek up on the western wall overlooking the harbour, and as I mounted the stairs I saw Longinus standing with him, bent forward as he peered down from the battlements. I was surprised to see that there were relatively few defenders up there, but before I could say anything Derek nodded to us and pointed with his thumb in the direction of the wharf beyond the wall.
"The gods were looking after us last night. Look over there."
There have been times in my life when my mind has been swamped and confounded by overwhelming impressions. One of those moments came upon me when I crossed to look down from the battlements into the harbour beneath. What I saw remains with me in images that rear behind my eyes, defying me then and ever since to find words to describe it.
Chaos and madness and unbridled destruction: half and more of the long, seaward-pointing pier of thick oak trunks and planks splintered to ruin, shattered and ruptured amid a nightmarish confusion of sunken, upended and overturned galleys scattered the length and breadth of the harbour; barnacled bottoms pointed skyward, yawing sluggishly in the dying current; shattered keels, broken masts and spars; drifting, torn and severed ropes and frayed, unravelled cables; drowned, bobbing bodies twisting in scores; swirling, scummy broken water, heaving and surging; gleaming, glistening piles and heaps of seaweed everywhere, torn from its roots and cast up by raging waves on to the wharf road along the bottom of the wall; corpses littering the shore and sprawled at the base of the wall where they had been thrown by the same waves' fury; other men scurrying among these, carrying bared blades, looking for signs of life to snuff out; everywhere the signs of overwhelming tragedy and the awful, blasting power of nature's unrestrained rage. And oars everywhere, littering the surface of the sea like impossibly straight, leafless branches, while on the straight upstanding stern of one sundered galley, a scattering of arrows stood in the wood of the planking, the only evidence among the carnage, save for the scurrying scavengers beneath, that men had been involved in dealing death here.
Incapable of speech, I fumbled at my helmet straps and bared my head. Derek stood watching me, saying nothing. Finally, I found something to do. I began to count the shattered galleys. I lost count at fourteen and blew out a deep, sharp breath.
"How many wrecked, do you know?"
He shrugged. "We counted twenty, but there could be more."
"God! And so many bodies. There must be a hundred there, still in the water."
"Aye, but they're the light ones. Those who were wearing armour sank and stayed down."
"Sweet Jesus! What happened? I mean, I know it was the storm, but what could have possessed their leader to allow his boats so close inshore in such conditions? He should have ridden the thing out, safe out at sea."