The Red And Savage Tongue (Historical Fiction Action Adventure Book, set in Dark Age post Roman Britain) Read Free Page B

and which allowed shafts of diffused light to illuminate the huge area below. Used for storage, a wide, stone square formed the centre of the cellar. Nothing now remained in the square save for leaf litter and a number of weightless bird skeletons. Dominic’s entry evoked an air change, causing some of the dry leaves and bones to skitter across the floor. Looking round, he could see that stone vaults were recessed into the sides of the cellar.    
         He observed no movement as he slowly shuffled, crouched and ready, around the cellar, approaching the vaults and turning quickly and purposefully into them. This he did until he was sure he was alone. He now saw that the cellar would offer good shelter and with its one entrance would be easy to defend. He had found his new home.

CHAPTER TWO
     
     
    Simon left his dwelling just before dawn and strolled up to an outcrop on the far edge of the fields. Here, he began to sort stones, putting them in piles according to their shape and size, ready for their use as a walling material later in the year. As a man of sixty-eight years, his contribution to the village workload was now undemanding, but jobs such as this, which he could complete without hurrying, left him with a feeling of usefulness and satisfaction. He assessed the job at hand. If he worked smartly until midday, it would give him an appetite for the stew that his sister was so good at making. Then he could spend the afternoon at leisure, teasing the children and joking with his older friends as they sat talking in the sunshine outside the huts.
         Whistling, he began his task, enjoying the dawn chorus as he worked. A thundering noise, growing in intensity, caused him to look instinctively into the sky. As the rumbling grew louder he realised it was the sound of many riders. Chilled by the noise, his thoughts went to the tales of brutal folk from beyond the Grey Wash that had circulated around the night fires recently and unsettled him greatly. Though he considered the tales exaggerated, they had still delayed his slumber on many nights. He had hoped that the dangers of the world would somehow avoid his village, and they would be free to live their lives in peace, but as he heard the sound of approaching hooves, he thought of the stories.
         He knew the riders could only approach the village along the track that lay below the knoll where he now laboured. Dropping to his belly, he inched slowly up the rise to observe the riders as they passed below, heading up the track towards the village. Like a swelling rip tide, they passed, and upon seeing them, Simon knew his old way of life had ended forever.
     
    The dawn was blood red as the war band rode into the village. The group numbered fifty and was lead by a fat, unkempt, bearded man who viciously heeled his stout pony into a gallop. As he did this, he removed a single-bladed war ax from beneath the secured sheepskin that served as his saddle. Raising the ax, he shouted over his shoulder, ‘No mercy! Kill all except any women or children who will fetch gold at the markets!’
         On hearing this, the pace of the group increased and they rode into the boundary of the vill age in a blur of dust and howls—their need for concealment now unnecessary.
         The village had a population of forty souls—most of them still in their simple dwellings preparing for another day in the fields. Some of the smaller children were already outside at play, but now they stood frozen and transfixed, observing the brutal torrent that swept towards them. They were the first to perish; some trampled and left bleeding and broken in the dust; others callously impaled upon spears or cleaved by the cold iron of the war axes.
         Soon, the dusty square of the village began to fill with confused villagers as they emerged to investigate the riot of sound outside their huts. Awful, keening shrieks filled the air, as mothers and grandmothers ran to attend the