Warriors of Camlann (34 page)

Less than fifty of the rebel Sarmatians got away. Gwynefa was among them. She charged down the hill screaming words Dan could not hear. She was a princess of Rheged and rode like one, both hands holding the kontos, keeping her seat with superb balance and skill, her black hair like a dark flag, streaming behind her. It was a shock then, when her horse stumbled on a corpse and she fell from the saddle. She landed badly like a doll tossed from a pram, her limbs bent at improbable angles. Dan could not see her move. Dan turned and wheeled away – away from the hillside and the riderless horses stampeding over Arturus's Queen where she lay, bloodied and crushed. She was dead, trampled by her own men fleeing the chaos on the hillside. Dan had felt her dying anguish, her panic, and her sudden peace.

He withdrew instinctively from the screams of combat and the soundless anguish that accompanied them and found himself flying over the plain where Larcius, too, had made Gwynefa's fatal mistake and tried to fight on two fronts at once. Some of his light cavalry had successfully turned to face the bulk of Arturus's Cataphracts, those that Ursula had not chosen, but most were fleeing the charging heavy horses, resplendent in their glimmering armour, fleeing the fierce strength of the armoured riders, with their inhuman metal face-masks. The greater part of Larcius's force forgot all battle discipline and rode into the growing melee of men and horses across the centre of the plain. There, Bedewyr and the infantry held their square formation. They looked solid as a tank and deadly as a giant porcupine, sprouting spines of metal spears. Bedewyr's men formed a formidable defensive weapon which hampered the movement of the surviving cavalry as they struggled to stay clear of the double row of spears. Larcius's light cavalry were sandwiched between Arturus's Sarmatians, the fleeing remnants of Gwynefa's force and Ursula's cavalry who had now swept down the hill into the central plain. There were horses everywhere rearing and kicking, dying or lying dead. There were bodies everywhere and small desperate battles in a confusion of contorted flesh and armour. All Dan could feel was pain. It almost drove him back to
his own form, but he fought his own urgent need to flee: he had to find Ursula. At last, he spotted her golden face-mask and saw her fighting hand-to-hand with some light cavalryman, while her Sarmatians fought to get close enough to protect her. She was alive for now.

He flew away, instinctively, too fearful to watch. He turned and found himself observing the battered form of the High King Arturus, wearing Frontalis's tattered monk's cloak and fighting for his life. He had lost his horse and was bleeding from a blow to the groin. He was coming to the end of his strength and struggling against a gore-soaked opponent whom Dan belatedly realised was Larcius. His face was almost unrecognisable, dark with congealing blood from a major wound to his head. He had lost his helmet and seemed scarcely more alive than Arturus. As Dan watched, Arturus staggered forward and thrust his sword through Larcius's chest. He put all his weight, all his anger at betrayal, all his vast disappointment behind it. For a moment it looked as though Larcius would speak, his mouth opened, then Dan felt him die. Dan found himself staring at the dead man through Arturus's battle-weary eyes, eyes that stung with salt sweat. Arturus wiped his face and Dan shared with him the hollowness of the victory. Arturus was exhausted, he waited until his breathing became less ragged, resting his hands on his thighs as he
knelt on the ground beside his victim. Arturus stretched forward and twisted the hilt of the sword, Caliburn, Dan's own Bright Killer, which still protruded from the chest of Gwynefa's lover. Arturus gazed at his handiwork; and then, with a trembling sigh, ripped Caliburn from the dead man, cleaned it roughly on the grass and moved on through the confusion of bodies, in search of a horse. Dan struggled to separate his consciousness from that of the High King whose thoughts were shadowed with battle lust and a grim, dogged desire for vengeance.

The sun was high now and the battleground reeked of death. The infantry had still not engaged. The only route to the enemy was still blocked with cavalry, fighting to get away, to stay alive, a sea of horseflesh. Ursula was nowhere to be seen. Dan circled, trying to ignore the grim sights and worse emotions that battered at his senses from all sides. It was worse than Baddon and even more difficult to find Ursula by eye alone and he dare not seek her thoughts. Her golden helm was almost invisible among the crowd of bodies. Some few of her men were with her, but there were many more of Larcius's lighter cavalry. The battle no longer had any obvious pattern; men were fighting and dying without purpose, without reason. Ursula was swamped by men, fighting to retain her seat as her horse reared, fighting to parry the slashing swords that surrounded her. She
cried out, with all the strength she had left. She knew she could not hold out much longer. Her cry broke through all the ambient pain and fear to deafen him.

‘Dan!'

‘Ursula! Hold on!'

He woke in his own body, breathing as if he himself had been stabbed. It was his dream made real. Who else could it have been, the Arturus who was not Arturus but Ursula, whose deeds had become entangled with Arturus's own? He had never been more afraid.

‘Bryn! Must go to Ursula! Braveheart!'

Bryn reacted instantly, understanding everything, questioning nothing.

It all looked different from the ground. What had seemed like a series of separate skirmishes from the air was from the ground unreadable chaos: a cacophony of noise, a crush of roiling, twisting, dying men. There were bodies underfoot and everywhere the stink of death and dung. Bryn and Dan took the swift horses of two of the messengers. Taliesin flew as Merlin somewhere unseen. Braveheart ran at their side. They rode past the still intact infantry division, past the body of Larcius, closer to the road than Dan had thought it. He rode into the melee hacking at anything that got in his way, except it wasn't anything but anyone, and every blow he dealt he felt. In front of him he saw the battered form of Arturus locked in combat with Medraut.
The veteran was frailer and older than Dan's memory of him, but he was still a wily opponent. Arturus was badly injured and without a horse. Arturus tried valiantly to hamstring Medraut's mount but had not the strength. Dan could feel the life leeching from the King as, with an almighty cry, Medraut launched a frenzied attack on his former comrade. Arturus had found a shield from somewhere and held it above him, saving himself from the most vicious of the blows but, weakened from blood loss, Arturus fell, only to be crushed by the hooves of Medraut's mount as it reared, and Medraut rode on. Arturus Ursus, High King of Britannia, died there unnoticed by any eye save Dan's. Arturus's face was an unrecognisable ruin, another anonymous corpse on a mortuary field, wrapped in a monk's cloak. Later, there would be deep regret and even sorrow, but there was no time in all that madness, in the bloody maelstrom of battle. Dan dismounted, swinging down from his horse and vaulting straight back up, pausing only to pick up his own blade, Bright Killer, from Arturus's still warm and bloody hand. Dan was so desperate to save Ursula that it did not even seem a callous act.

With single-minded purpose Dan refused to accept the pain he felt in every part of his being. He dared not stop to check whether he was truly bleeding from a hundred wounds, or if it merely felt like it. He could only think about Ursula. Her voice still screamed in his
head, weaker but still desperate.

‘Dan-Dan-Dan-Dan!'

‘Hold on, Ursula!'

He could not tell if she heard. He was dimly conscious of Bryn behind him. Somehow Bryn had acquired an Aenglisc war axe – perhaps it had been in his pack, but he used it to brutal effect at Dan's left while, at his right, Braveheart dodged the hooves of horses, snarled, and savaged, and stayed by Dan's side. Ursula was still in the thick of the fighting. Her gold face-mask was in place but blood was pooling at her neck. A young Sarmatian fought at her right hand, fending off what blows he could but he was himself hard-pressed and tiring. As Dan watched, Ursula despatched a new attacker with a ferocious blow to his groin which sliced an artery. Blood pumped from the wound and only as the man fell did Dan recognise the aged body of Medraut and, riding towards him through all the chaos of battle, Rhonwen.

‘Get Rhonwen!' Dan yelled over the battle noise.

Bryn seemed to understand.

A large Sarmatian was closing in on Ursula. Dan slashed Bright Killer's sharpened edge into the man's face and almost passed out with the pain. The world went black for a moment, but he kept upright and got to Ursula. She was barely conscious, only in her seat because one of her men held her there trying to defend
her with his own shield. Dan fought to hang on to his own awareness, not to feel Ursula's pain. He concentrated ruthlessly upon action. Dan could not lift her onto his horse but, instead, leaped onto hers. He timed it carefully and slapped his own horse hard so that it reared and startled the throng pressing against Ursula. The young Sarmatian, who wore Cynfach's armour, left Ursula's defence to Dan and was able to launch an attack of his own. Between them they made some space and rode free, Braveheart at their heels, Bryn fighting his way after them, herding Rhonwen and her mount, and keeping attackers from their backs. Ursula's mental cry, almost like a mechanical distress beacon, had stopped by the time Dan got her back to Taliesin. Dan hastily sheathed Bright Killer, still sticky with congealing gore. In the distance he knew that the battle still raged. He heard the roar as the Aenglisc infantry charged, and spent their lives on Combrogi spears. It no longer mattered. The one remaining messenger helped Ursula from her horse and between them they carried her to a safe place. Dan ripped off Ursula's mask. Her face was so white he was momentarily afraid that she had died. She was so covered in blood he could not see where she was injured. He made himself think and tried to focus his empathy on her alone. She was in terrible pain and had been cut in many places – the worst being her leg. He fashioned a tourniquet. Brother Frontalis
shook his head. She'd lost too much blood.

‘I've got to get her to hospital – in my own world – get her a transfusion,' said Dan. ‘If I could get her home – she'd be all right.'

Dan tried to do what he had once done with Medraut, tried to focus on his own health, and project that into her consciousness. It was too much. He could feel himself being dragged by the closeness of their rapport into the place of near-death where Ursula lay. He pulled away, physically gasping for air, tears of frustration and grief making it hard for him to see. Rhonwen dismounted and looked dispassionately at Ursula's bloodless face.

‘She killed Medraut. She is a brave girl, braver perhaps than he was. She deserved Macsen's trust. And yours,' she added, looking into Dan's haunted face. ‘She would not leave you.'

Dan looked at Rhonwen in surprise. She had dropped the illusion that had disguised her scars from all but Ursula. She looked tired, grief-stricken, and suddenly old.

‘How many Combrogi dead, Princess?' said Taliesin bitterly. ‘You have killed off Macsen's heritage true enough. Are you satisfied?'

Rhonwen said nothing.

Dan was checking Ursula for a pulse. She still had one, but it was weak.

‘I don't care about that, Taliesin, this is no time to talk.' Dan's voice was sharp with grief, raw and wretched. He was willing Ursula to hang on, trying to lend her his strength without losing himself in her pain.

‘Rhonwen, please, raise the Veil! Please! By all you hold dear, she was never your enemy. Let us go home. We fought for your brother and we've fought for the Combrogi. We did all we could. Help her now! Let us go!'

Rhonwen silently turned her back on Taliesin. Dan thought she was crying; he could spare no empathy for anyone but Ursula, his fear for her blotted out everything. Rhonwen walked a small distance away and began to chant. To Dan's eyes it looked at first as if nothing was happening. Every instant they remained in Arturus's world the life ebbed away from Ursula. Then the first yellow tendrils of mist appeared and began to grow. At the use of magic, Ursula's colour brightened, almost as if she drew strength from Rhonwen's power. She found Dan's hand and squeezed it. It was a weak squeeze, the slightest of pressures, but it was something. Dan dared to hope she might live. Taliesin and Dan lifted her between them and carried her into the growing vortex.

‘I love you, Dan. You came for me – fought for me?'
Her mental voice was quiet but present. He clutched her hand, willing her to hang on, his tears uncontrolled and unnoticed running in rivulets down his face.

‘Of course I fought for you. I love you, too, Ursula. Rhonwen's going to get us home. You'll be fine. I'll take you to hospital. You've only lost blood. You'll be fine!'

He'd said what had seemed so impossible to say, now it seemed as easy and natural as breathing. Of course he loved her. He would not let her die. Frontalis and Bryn were on their knees praying.

‘Will you come, Bryn?'

He shook his head. ‘I have a son and I cannot leave him. God bless you, Dan, and know that in spite of everything I do not regret a moment spent in your service. You have been a worthy Lord.'

Dan could not speak in reply; his throat was constricted by tension and grief. He nodded and hoped that Bryn would understand and forgive as he had understood and forgiven so much else.

Braveheart stepped into the mist to stand beside Dan and pushed his nose into Dan's hand, licking Ursula's bloodied body.

‘Rhonwen?' Taliesin met Rhonwen's eye. ‘Will you come home?'

She shook her head. ‘Who is left to make sure the Combrogi are never forgotten if I go? You are ready to go now aren't you?'

Taliesin, abashed, nodded.

‘Arturus is dead, Rhonwen.
The Bear
is no longer on the hillside and I fear it is over for us. We Combrogi
had twenty more years because of him. That is better than nothing and perhaps it is enough to keep our memory alive. I have one remaining duty – to help take Ursula home. Her injury is my fault.
She
needs me now.'