Warrior of the West Read Free Page B

the shield wall was engaged, the warriors refused to retreat, holding the line until every last man was dead. Like the ancient Spartans, the Saxons worshipped individual heroism and prowess in battle, but without the leaven of Spartan iron discipline. Wild for glory, Saxon warriors courted death and heroism, while the Romans had always been pragmatic, professional and sanguine fighters.
    Artor had viewed the shield wall from a convenient rise in the ground above the forked Roman road near Magnis. He had sighed, anticipating the slaughter that it presaged. The Saxons were accustomed to absorbing the shock of fiercely attacking men, but Artor had changed the rules of engagement. The High King ordered his cavalry to pound the wall in wave after thundering wave of charging horseflesh. No man, no matter how large, can absorb the shock of a galloping horse. As the cavalry disengaged, Celtic spears were used to deadly effect to slaughter fallen men. Inevitably, many horses perished as the berserk Saxons risked everything to gut the animals, but the wall was weakened and eventually broke. The remaining Saxons fled into the inhospitable mountains. Through inexperience, Artor had mercifully permitted them to escape.
    ‘You’ll have to crush them sooner or later,’ Targo, his old sword master, had grunted as he cut the throat of a horse whose leg dangled at an unnatural, painful angle.
    ‘True,’ Artor replied philosophically, and stepped to one side to avoid the jet of arterial blood as the horse kicked convulsively, and then died. ‘But I must soon face a larger Saxon force in the east, and I don’t have the men to deal with enemies on two fronts. These curs will keep till a later time.’
    ‘You’ll not succeed with cavalry so easily again,’ Targo warned softly. ‘Still, I suppose there’s many ways to trap a rabbit, as my old sergeant used to say. They’ll continue to breed until they become a problem once again.’
    ‘Give over, Targo!’ Artor snapped, his eyes momentarily cold. Then he laughed ruefully. ‘I still lack the stomach for carnage.’
    ‘You’ll learn,’ Targo replied without a trace of humour or rancour in his cracked old voice.
    Half-starved and ill-equipped, the Saxons had squabbled and skirmished on the rocky hills of Dyfed like parasites until an emerging new leader had bludgeoned them into a fragile unity, linked only by their old hatred for all things Celt - and for King Artor. Intolerant and obdurate, these warriors were born and bred as Saxons, not as Britons, regardless of their mixed bloodlines. They swore that they would never again retreat from their enemy.
    After that first successful campaign, the war with the Saxons and the traitorous Celtic kings had raged for twelve long years. Now, all the Celtic tribes south of the great Roman Wall were united against a shared barbarian threat. Now, at Cadbury, Artor waited.
    ‘So many dead warriors, and all good men,’ Artor sighed. ‘Why was so much violence necessary? Reason and compromise could have saved hundreds - nay, thousands of lives. But compromise is another word for cowardice in the Saxon vocabulary.’
    ‘Talking to yourself again, Artor?’ Targo muttered, leaning upon a heavy staff. ‘When an ancient like me can sneak up on you, then you’re dead.’
    ‘Why do our conversations always hark back to my mortality?’ Artor smiled as he spoke. ‘How goes your day, Targo?’
    ‘Slowly, slowly. As it does for you, my lord. You still await news of your proposed truce from our envoys?’
    ‘The waiting tries my patience, Targo.’
    ‘Your attempts at peacemaking won’t work, my boy. You’ll receive your ambassadors back in little pieces, and the Saxons will believe that you’re growing soft and are too frightened to engage them in battle. I told you in times gone by that they’d breed to cause you trouble.’
    Artor sighed with resignation. ‘Yes.’
    The single word fell like a stone into a deep and very empty well.
    Targo