The Wald Read Free

teeth.  The determined little man doubled his efforts and pulled alongside Gundahar.  For the first time he saw the village which was, by then, almost upon them.  He saw women carrying babies and dragging children in the opposite direction, trudging through the mud to the next town or some hiding place.  Berengar then noticed that the town was the largest village he’d ever seen – except his brief glance at Oppidum Ubiorum – with perhaps one hundred homes.  Closer still, between his position and the screaming women and their crying children, between his little sword and the rich town, came scores of men.  They advanced in a jumble of bodies, carrying spears or farm tools.  One of them, tan from working outside all year, laid eyes on Gundahar and the boy and pressed on to them.  Berengar felt his bladder release.
    The bottom of the Gaul’s boot caught Berengar squarely in the chest, knocking out his wind while propelling him onto his back in the mud.  The boy gasped for air.  His bladder somehow found more urine to send into his trousers.  Gundahar blocked a downward blow from the Gaul’s hoe with his spear, forcing the attacker back with a good shove.  In moments the Gaul lay dying, whimpering in the muck with blood spitting from his mouth.  Gundahar jerked Berengar up by his arm, slammed the hilt of his little sword back into his hand, and ordered him to follow.  He was ten paces away before the boy understood.
    This must be the Muspelheim, thought Berengar, as he watched the chaos around him.  Men gritted their teeth and shouted.  Men cried, kneeling atop their own entrails.  Berengar threw up on himself, but still he ran.
    The Sugambrians were too many for the defenders and very quickly the din of battle fell to a low level, with pockets of conflict.  Gundahar kicked in the heavy hardwood door to a house.  Inside a woman with gray frizzy hair lay nearby with her throat cut.  Two of Gundahar’s countrymen stood with their backs to him, a third was on the floor raping a woman who hadn’t made it out of the town in time.
    “Finish your fun!” shouted Gundahar, “then loot this place.  You two, stop standing around and clean out this home.”
    “We want our fun, too,” they complained.
    “They’ll be others, and prettier too.  Now move.  If we all took time to drop our trousers, we might as well invite the Romans to snip us off,” snorted Gundahar. Angrily the two men stalked off, mumbling about the ugly bastard, soon grabbing anything of any value in the home.  The third man finished his work on the young woman and stood bathed in sweat, quickly joining in the thievery.  The woman shook and crawled like a wounded animal into the farthest, darkest corner of the house.
    Berengar burst through the door at that moment, locking eyes with the young woman.  Gundahar reacted out of instinct and almost decapitated the boy with a slash of his spear’s tip.  “Where have you . . . Oh!  You’ve upped all over yourself.”  The other three men laughed at the boy, but kept about their business.  “Let’s find a storehouse,” said Gundahar and he marched out the door, his arms full.  Berengar stupidly toddled behind him, looking over his shoulder at the shivering woman, not knowing what else to do.  He thought of his mother, much younger than his father.  The frightened woman in the corner reminded him of her.
    Gundahar dumped his booty o nto the dirty street where mountains of goods were quickly accumulating as other men in his father’s army did the same.  The Sugambrians worked efficiently marching in and out of homes and barns, dragging out hogs, chickens, cattle, and goats.  A few of the men were even honest enough to throw Roman coins with some man’s head stamped across it into the pile.  Most of the men, though, if they found such trinkets would simply place them in their own pouch.  Horses and carts, too, were taken.  They would carry much of the load as the army moved