Shadowland (6 page)

‘Better, boy, better, but pick up your feet; don’t
go tripping over yourself.’ The spear flew around again, first on the left
side, then quickly to the right and then with a flourish, it came back on the
left side once more with Usher blocking each blow. ‘Getting the hang of it?’
questioned Meryn, dropping his stance to a more relaxed pose. Usher nodded, but
as he let down his guard, the bottom of Meryn’s spear came up from where it had
rested against the floor, only narrowly missing his chin as he jumped back. The
next few moments became a blur as Meryn pushed him with a flurry of heavy
knocks and blows that jarred through him. ‘Good, boy, good, keep your eyes
focused on my whole body. It’s an ability you’ll have to develop quickly if you
hope to survive long in battle. Only the best can do it, but then it’s only the
best that survive when the world turns to madness. Are you beginning to see the
strikes coming before they land?’ Usher nodded, then seeing an opening, tried a
strike of his own. Meryn blocked it easily and then called a halt. Usher
watched for a moment, unsure if it was just another trick.

Throwing back his head, Meryn’s laughter exploded as
he pointed to the expression on Usher’s face. ‘You look like you’ve been kissed
by a fish... a tench at that, but we may make you a warrior yet. Take a rest,
boy.’ He turned to Cal who had been sitting cross-legged following the whole
exchange. ‘Swords, I think, Calvador.’ Tossing the spear to the ground, Meryn
unrolled the three wooden practice swords and Cal leaped in, snatching one up before Meryn
could catch him out with a sneak attack. Meryn grinned. ‘Very good, Calvador, don’t
ever trust me when we’re practising and you need never trust an enemy.’ He took
up a sword and stepped back. ‘There are no rules when two warriors face each
other. One will live and, if he’s lucky, the other may die. If he’s unlucky,
then he may live long enough to wish he were
dead with some deep and ’
orrible
wound to remind
him of his mistakes.’ Then, with a two-handed grip, Meryn attacked.

The practice sessions had taken place first thing
every morning, and then last thing every night while the porridge or stew was
bubbling over the cooking fire. Meryn had pounded them with spears, bruised
them with the practice swords, and made their fingers bleed from pulling back
the bowstring, but they were improving, slowly. They both favoured the sword
and Usher was proving to be more than competent with the bow; taking a rabbit
three evenings running, much to his delight.

The tracks told them they were closing on the Picts
and then, late one afternoon, an old woman gathering firewood gave them their
first positive confirmation that they were on the right trail. She claimed a party
of strange warriors had been camped close to an isolated spinney near the edge
of the forest for the last two days. She had seen them coming and going several
times. With a renewed sense of anticipation, they quickened their pace and as
the light was fading towards the end of the day, they had finally seen the
spinney in the distance. Thunder rumbled as they approached, and the rain,
which had been drizzling all day began to fall with greater intensity.

By the time they had made it to the trees, the rain
had been coming down in torrents for a while. Daylight dropped quickly as the
clouds closed in, covering them in a chill-soaking blanket as they edged slowly
forward. When it eventually began to ease some time later, moonlight broke
through the canopy with a bright silvery light, at once transforming the
freshly fallen raindrops into a myriad of tiny sparkles amid the shadows.

Usher huddled next to Cal on the edge of the spinney and shivered,
he was miserable. Cal
sneezed and let out a dismal moan, and Usher laid a hand of comfort on his
friends shoulder.
 
The only benefit of
the awful weather was that it offered cover as they made their way across the
moorland and now as they crept along the edge of the forest towards the Picts’
camp. The smell of wood-smoke was the first indication they were getting
closer. Thin ghostly wisps showing up in the intermittent beams of moonlight as
the clouds began to part and the rain began to ease at last.

Fast-moving clouds occasionally covered the moon,
plunging the woodland back into darkness and it was in these moments that the
three cautiously made their way forward, their feet silent upon the wet leaves.
The boys were both shivering, but the tension of being so close to the Picts’
camp meant they had all but forgotten how uncomfortable they were. At least it
had finally stopped raining.

Meryn moved off, indicating silently that they
should keep walking. He had warned them that the Picts were still a long way
from their home and would have men stationed around the camp, so every shadow
and every sound only increased their fear. Having left a trail of looted
villages behind them, the Picts would no doubt be expecting some sort of attack
from the tribes, so approaching them was never going to be easy.

Usher crouched quickly as an owl hooted, his senses
stretching as he scanned the darkness to his right for some sign of Meryn. The
archer had used the sound before to get their attention, but in the darkness,
it was hard to see anything.

Moonlight broke through the clouds and briefly lit
Meryn standing about ten paces away beside a large tree. He made a quick signal
for Usher and Cal to stay where they were and then melted back into the shadows
once more. Usher turned to make sure his friend had seen and felt Cal move to crouch
beside him. He instantly felt better with him this close as they waited.

A steady drizzle began to fall, caught on an
easterly breeze, finding its way through the trees in a fine mist that coated
everything in its path. Usher shivered again and wiped his hand down his face,
then glanced across trying to make out Cal’s
features in the darkness. As the moonlight broke through the cloud once more,
he grinned to see his friend wreathed in slowly rising haze and suppressed a
laugh, his breath escaping in a small cloud in front of him.

Cal
pushed him and he rolled
over soundlessly in the wet leaves. ‘I don’t know what you’re laughing at.
Where’s Meryn gone?’ Cal’s
voice came as a whisper.

Usher sat back up brushing leaves from his tunic and
shrugged, then pointed through the trees towards the faint glow of the Picts’
fire, its crackling sounds just audible over the constant dripping of the wet
forest around them.

‘Gone to look at the camp, I suppose. I’m frozen,
aren’t you?’

‘
Mmm
,’ muttered Cal. ‘I couldn’t feel my
hands back there so I’m warming them under my tunic.’

Usher glanced down and saw that Cal had his hands tucked under his arms. He
tried the same thing, and then immediately regretted the sudden chill it
brought to his bare skin.

Without warning, something moved in the trees to the
side of them, and Meryn slipped out of the darkness and crouched down.

‘There are ten of them, maybe twelve at the most,’
said the old archer, drawing each breath in a suppressed ragged gasp. ‘It’s
hard to see. I already dealt with the two sentries they had posted on this
side, but there may well be more. They have a cart now and six or seven young
captives, your sister may well be one of them.’ He held out a hand to stop them
as both boys made to stand up. ‘We have to do this right, my young friends.
They’ll cut us down before you could even shout your sister’s name if we just
go charging in there. You.’ He jabbed a finger at Usher. ‘You have to lead as
many of them away as you can. If you can manage that, then the two of us can go
in and try to get them youngsters free. Hopefully, we’ll find his sister
amongst them.’

‘And that’s your plan?’ Usher scowled at where he
thought Meryn was in the darkness. ‘What happens if they catch me?’ The clouds
parted again revealing Meryn’s grinning face.

‘They’ll kill you, so don’t get caught,’ said Meryn,
holding Usher’s incredulous gaze until the clouds robbed them of light again.

‘Don’t get
caught!’
hissed Usher. ‘Well that’s good advice, I’ll keep thinking that while…’ He felt
Cal grab his
arm.

‘I’ll do it, Usher. I’m faster than you are, and
you’re the better fighter. We’ve only one chance to get Clarise away, so I’ll
get as many of them out of the camp as I can, I can do that. You go and find
her, and get her out. Just don’t get caught… all right?’

Usher nodded. ‘Let’s be sure none of us gets
caught,’ he whispered, as Cal
slipped silently away.

Treading as quietly as possible, Cal crept through the wet undergrowth,
keeping the glow of the Picts’ fire in sight until he found the well-trodden
path that the warriors had been using. He waited a moment, listening for signs
of any sentries, and then hurried along it until he was well out of sight of
the camp, and set his first trap. At least this was something he knew how to do.
He knew he couldn’t chance outrunning his pursuers. However, with a few simple
traps he could lead them far enough away, and then give them the slip with as
little risk to himself as possible… or so he hoped.

Taking a length of hide from his pack, he tied it
knee-height between two trees, then carefully marked where it was by dragging
out a branch, partway onto the path. Thirty paces further he did the same thing
again. Then, with his breath rasping and his heart hammering loud in his ears,
he retraced his steps back towards the camp.

As
Usher followed Meryn forward, he was experiencing similar fingers of fear
creeping up from his stomach.
Just a few nights ago, he had been sitting round the fire in his
family home with a full stomach, listening to his parents’ talk of the harvest
stores and the upcoming winter solstice celebrations, and thinking of little
more than sleep. Now here he was, cold, hungry, and about to enter the camp of
his parent’s murderers. Choking back a sob, he stumbled and forced himself
upright, trying to see something, anything, in the near pitch darkness of the
forest. All thoughts of the cold had gone. If anything, he now felt hot and
there was a rising fluttering of panic in his chest as the images of these same
warriors burning his village and murdering the fleeing people came uncalled
from his memory. He thought of his parents, his poor mother...

Something thumped against his chest and he stopped.
Meryn had thrust out an arm to stop him from blundering into a dead body lying
against a tree, and his mind cleared with a jolt. The moon, as if by design,
chose that moment to make its appearance and he stared down into the sightless
eyes of a fallen Pict warrior. Usher opened his mouth in horror as everything
began to spiral out of control… then Meryn’s hand clamped over his mouth and
his voice hissed into his ear.

‘He’s dead, boy! As dead as the friends and family
he killed back in your village, and there’ll be a few more of them before we’re
done here, so get used to it.’

Usher felt his cheeks glow as he realised how he
must appear to the old archer. He drew in a deep breath, and then mumbled, ‘I’m
sorry.’

‘
Shh
,’ Meryn silenced him,
and then cautiously waved him forward to the tree line around the camp.

Eight children were huddled close to the wagon with
just one Pict warrior standing guard over them. They looked cold, wet, and
bereft of any life; Usher recognised several. Crouched together, they were
silently staring towards the warmth of the distant fire where the majority of
the Picts were eating and relaxing. Usher counted them, quietly mumbling the
numbers, ten. There were ten of them including the one guarding the children.

It suddenly dawned upon Usher the enormity of the
task ahead of them. Even if they did manage, by some miracle of the spirits, to
get the captives away, how long would they be able to evade the Picts who would
be sure to follow? He glanced at Meryn, sensing he must have come to the same
conclusion long ago, yet here he was still helping them. Usher only hoped he
had a plan. If they survived, then beholden to him they certainly would be.

As he studied the Picts, one of them got to his feet
swaying happily, tipped up a jug, and emptied it in a series of greedy gulps.
Usher felt a wave of relief as he realised the man was drunk. The warrior
tipped the last of the ale into his open mouth then hurled the jug into the
forest, swaying slightly as he listened to the sound of it falling through the
branches. He belched loudly, and then shouted something in the Pictish tongue, which
brought laughter from the others. With another happy belch, he turned and
started into the forest, probably seeking a little privacy to relieve
himself.
    

Indicating Usher should stay where he was, Meryn
slipped away towards the disappearing warrior.
 

Moments later, he returned. ‘Nine’ was all he said
before continuing his vigil of the camp.

‘Will you be able to kill a man?’ The question came
as a warm breath, whispered into Usher’s ear. It took him with such surprise
that he pulled sharply away; rubbing furiously at the tickle the words had
left. Meryn chuckled softly in the darkness.
 
It was something he had been asking himself since first seeing the Picts
at camp and he honestly didn’t know the answer.

Meryn thrust his polished bow into Usher’s cold
hands. ‘Here, when the shouting starts, kill him first.’ He pointed to the
guard standing over the children. ‘Then turn and kill any of the others that
you can.’ Wordlessly Usher accepted the quiver of arrows and, with fumbling
fingers, placed one ready against the bowstring.