Last Sword of Power Read online

  “What happened to him?”

  “The emperor recalled him to Rome, and he was assassinated.” Grysstha chuckled. “Worms in the brain, Cormac.”

  “Why?” queried the boy. “Why kill an able general?”

  “Think on it, boy.”

  “I can make no sense of it.”

  “That is the mystery, Cormac. Do not seek for sense in the tale. Seek for the hearts of men. Now, leave me to watch these goats swell their bellies and get back to your duties.”

  The boy’s face fell. “I like to be here with you, Grysstha. I … I feel at peace here.”

  “That is what friendship is, Cormac Daemonsson. Take strength from it, for the world does not understand the likes of you and me.”

  “Why are you my friend, Grysstha?”

  “Why does the eagle fly? Why is the sky blue? Go now. Be strong.”

  Grysstha watched as the lad wandered disconsolately from the high meadow toward the huts below. Then the old warrior swung his gaze up to the horizon and the low, scudding clouds. His stump ached, and he pulled the leather cap from his wrist, rubbing at the scarred skin. Reaching out, he tugged the wooden blade from the ground, remembering the days when his own sword had had a name and a history and, more, a future.

  But that had been before the day fifteen years ago when the Blood King had cleaved the South Saxon, butchering and burning, tearing the heart from the people and holding it above their heads in his mailed fist. He should have killed them all, but he did not. He made them swear an oath of allegiance and lent them coin to rebuild ruined farms and settlements.

  Grysstha had come close to killing the Blood King in the last battle. He had hacked his way into the shield square, cutting a path toward the flame-haired king, when a sword had slashed down across his wrist, almost severing his hand. Then another weapon had hammered into his helm and he had fallen, dazed. He had struggled to rise, but his head was spinning. When at last he regained consciousness, he opened his eyes to find himself gazing at the Blood King, who was kneeling beside him. Grysstha’s fingers reached out for the man’s throat, but there were no fingers—only a bloody bandage.

  “You were a magnificent warrior,” said the Blood King. “I salute you!”

  “You cut off my hand!”

  “It was hanging by a thread. It could not be saved.”

  Grysstha forced himself to his feet, staggered, then gazed around him. Bodies littered the field, and Saxon women were moving among the corpses, seeking lost loved ones.

  “Why did you save me?” snarled Grysstha, rounding on the king.

  The man merely smiled and turned on his heel. Flanked by his guards, he strode from the field to a crimson tent by a rippling stream.

  “Why?” bellowed Grysstha, falling to his knees.

  “I do not think he knows himself,” said a voice, and Grysstha looked up.

  Leaning on an ornate crutch carved from dark shining wood was a middle-aged Briton with a wispy gray-blond beard over a pointed chin. Grysstha saw that his left leg was twisted and deformed. The man offered the Saxon his hand, but Grysstha ignored it and pushed himself to his feet.

  “He sometimes relies on intuition,” the man said gently, his pale eyes showing no sign of offense.

  “You are of the tribes?” said Grysstha.

  “Brigante.”

  “Then why follow the Roman?”

  “Because the land is his and he is the land. My name is Prasamaccus.”

  “So I live because of the king’s whim?”

  “Yes. I was beside him when you charged the shield wall; it was a reckless action.”

  “I am a reckless man. What does he mean to do with us now? Sell us?”

  “I think he means to leave you in peace.”

  “Why would he do anything so foolish?”

  Prasamaccus limped to a jutting boulder and sat. “A horse kicked me,” he said, “and my leg was not strong before that. How is your hand?”

  “It burns like fire,” said Grysstha, sitting beside the tribesman, his eyes on the women still searching the field of battle as the crows circled, screeching their hunger.

  “He says that you also are of the land,” said Prasamaccus. “He has reigned for ten years. He sees Saxons and Jutes and Angles and Goths being born in this Island of Mist. They are no longer invaders.”

  “Does he think we came here to serve a Roman king?”

  “He knows why you came: to plunder and kill and grow rich. But you stayed to farm. How do you feel about the land?”

  “I was not born here, Prasamaccus.”

  The Brigante smiled and held out his left hand. Grysstha looked down at it and then took it in the warrior’s grip, wrist to wrist.

  “I think that is a good first use of your left hand.”

  “It will also learn to use a sword. My name is Grysstha.”

  “I have seen you before. You were at the great battle near Eboracum the day the king came home.”

  Grysstha nodded. “You have a good eye and a better memory. It was the Day of the Two Suns. I have never seen the like since, nor would I wish to. We fought alongside the Brigante that day, and the coward-king Eldared. Were you with him?”

  “No. I stood under the two suns with Uther and the Ninth Legion.”

  “The Day of the Blood King. Nothing has been right since then. Why can he not be beaten? How does he always know where to strike?”

  “He is the land, and the land knows.”

  Grysstha said nothing. He had not expected the man to betray the king’s secret.

  Of seven thousand Saxon warriors who had begun the battle, a mere eleven hundred remained. Uther required them to kneel and swear a blood oath never to rise against him again. In return the land would be theirs, as before, but now by right and not by conquest. He also left them their own king, Wulfhere, son of Orsa, son of Hengist. It was a brave move. Grysstha knelt with the others in the dawn light before the king’s tent, watching as Uther stood with the boy Wulfhere.

  The Saxons smiled even in defeat, for they knew they knelt not before the conqueror but before their own sovereign lord.

  The Blood King knew it, too.

  “You have my word that our friendship is as strong as this blade,” he said, hoisting the Sword of Cunobelin high into the air, where the dawn sun glistened like fire on the steel. “But friendship has a price. This sword will accept no other swords in the hands of the Saxon.” An angry murmur rippled among the kneeling men. “Be true to your word and this may change,” said the king, “but if you are not true, I shall return, and not one man, not one woman, not one squalling babe will be left alive from Anderida to Venta. The choice is yours.”

  Within two hours both the king and his army had departed, and the stunned Saxons gathered in the Council of Wotan. Wulfhere was only twelve and could not vote, and Calder was appointed steward to help him govern. The rest of the day was devoted to the election of men to the council. Only two survived out of the original eighteen, but by dusk the positions had been filled once more.

  Two hours after dawn the eighteen met, and the real business began. Some were for heading east and linking with Hengist’s son, Drada, who was, after all, Wulfhere’s uncle and blood kin. Others were for waiting until another army could be gathered. Still more suggested sending for aid across the water, where the Merovingian wars were displacing fighting men.

  Two events turned the day. At noon a wagon arrived bearing gifts of gold and silver from the king, to be distributed “as the council sees fit.” This gift alone meant that food could be bought for the savage winter ahead, along with blankets and trade goods from the Merovingians in Gallia.

  Second, the steward Calder made a speech that would live long in the minds, if not the hearts, of his listeners.

  “I fought the Blood King, and my sword dripped red with the blood of his guards. But why did we fight him? Ask yourselves that. I say it was because we felt he could be beaten and there would be plunder from Venta, Londinium, Dubris, and all
the other merchant towns. But now we know. He cannot be beaten … not by us … perhaps not by Drada. You have seen the wagon—more coin than we could have taken in a campaign. I say we wait and judge his word: return to our farms, make repairs, gather harvests where we can.”

  “Men without swords, Calder. How, then, shall we reach Valhalla?” shouted a tall warrior.

  “I myself follow the White Christ,” said Calder, “so I have no interest in Valhalla. But if it worries you, Snorri, then join Drada. Let any man who wishes to fight on do the same. We have been offered friendship, and surely there are worse things in the world to receive from a conqueror than a wagon of gold.”

  “It is because he fears us,” said Snorri, lurching to his feet. “I say we use his gold to buy men and arms and then march on Camulodunum.”

  “You will perhaps take the barn with you on your campaign,” said Calder. Laughter followed his words, for it was well known that Snorri had hidden from the Romans under a blanket in the broad barn, running clear only when the enemy put it to the torch. He had been voted to the council merely on the strength of his landholdings.

  “I was cut off, and it was that or die,” said Snorri. “I’ll take my gold and join Drada.”

  “No one takes the gold,” said Calder. “The gift is to the council, and we will vote on its use.”

  At the last, Snorri and four other landsmen, with more than two hundred men, joined Drada; the rest remained to build a new life as vassals of the Blood King.

  For Grysstha the decision tasted of ashes. But he was Calder’s carle and was pledged to obey him, and the decisions of the great rarely concerned him.

  That night, as he stood alone on High Hill, Calder came to him.

  “You are troubled, my friend?” the steward asked.

  “The Days of Blood will come again. I can feel it in the whisper of the wind. The crows know it, too.”

  “Wise birds, crows. The eyes of Odin.”

  “I heard you told them you followed the White Christ.”

  “You think the Blood King had no ears at our meeting? You think Snorri and his men will live to join Drada? Or that any of us would have been left alive had I not spoken as I did? No, Grysstha. I follow the Old Gods who understood the hearts of men.”

  “And what of the treaty with Uther?”

  “We will honor it as long as it suits us, but one day you will be avenged for the loss of your sword arm. I had a dream last night, and I saw the Blood King standing alone on the top of a hill, his men all dead around him and his banner broken. I believe Odin sent that dream; it is a promise for the future.”

  “It will be many years before we are that strong again.”

  “I am a patient man, my friend.”

  The Blood King slowly dismounted, handing the reins of his warhorse to a silent squire. All around him the bodies of the slain lay where they had fallen, under a lowering sky and a dark cloud of storm crows waiting to feast.

  Uther removed his bronze helm, allowing the breeze to cool his face. He was tired now, more tired than he would allow any man to see.

  “You are wounded, sire,” said Victorinus, approaching through the gloom, his dark eyes narrowed in concern at the sight of blood seeping from the gash in the king’s arm.

  “It is nothing. How many men did we lose?”

  “The stretcher bearers are still out, sire, and the surgeon is too busy to count. I would say around eight hundred, but it might be less.”

  “Or more?”

  “We are harrying the enemy to the coast. Will you change your mind about not burning their ships?”

  “No. Without ships they cannot retreat. It would cost nearly a legion to destroy their army utterly, and I do not have five thousand men to spare.”

  “Let me bind your arm, sire.”

  “Stop fussing over me, man! The wound is sealed—well, almost. Look at them,” said the king, pointing to the field between the stream and the lake and the hundreds of bodies lying twisted in death. “They came for plunder. Now the crows will feast on their eyes. And will the survivors learn? Will they say, ‘Avoid the realm of the Blood King’? No, they will return in their thousands. What is it about this land that draws them?”

  “I do not know, sire, but as long as they come, we will kill them,” said Victorinus.

  “Always loyal, my friend. Do you know what today is?”

  “Of course, my lord. It is the Day of the Blood King.”

  Uther chuckled. “The Day of the Two Suns. Had I known then that a quarter century of war would follow …” He lapsed into silence.

  Victorinus removed his plumed helm, allowing his white hair to flow free in the evening breeze. “But you always conquer, my lord. You are a legend from Camulodunum to Rome, from Tingis to Byzantium: the Blood King who has never known defeat. Come, your tent is ready. I will pour you some wine.”

  The king’s tent had been pitched on the high ground overlooking the battlefield. Inside a brazier of coals was glowing beside the cot bed. Uther’s squire, Baldric, helped him out of his chain mail, his breastplate, and his greaves, and the king sank gratefully to the cot.

  “Today I feel my age,” he said.

  “You should not fight where the battle is thickest. A chance arrow, a lucky blow …” Victorinus shrugged. “We … Britain … could not stand without you.” He passed the king a goblet of watered wine, and Uther sat up and drank deeply.

  “Baldric!”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Clean the sword—and be careful, for it is sharper than sin.”

  Baldric smiled and lifted the great Sword of Cunobelin, carrying it from the tent. Victorinus waited until the lad had gone, then pulled up a canvas stool and sat beside the monarch.

  “You are tired, Uther. Leave the Trinovante uprising to Gwalchmai and me. Now that the Goths have been crushed, the tribes will offer little resistance.”

  “I will be fine after a night’s sleep. You fuss over me like an old woman!”

  Victorinus grinned and shook his head, and the king lay back and closed his eyes. The older man sat unmoving, staring at the face of his monarch—the flaming red hair and the silver-blond beard—and remembered the youth who had crossed the borders of hell to rescue his country. The hair was henna-dyed now, and the eyes seemed older than time.

  For twenty-five years this man had achieved the impossible, holding back the tide of barbarian invaders threatening to engulf the Land of Mist. Only Uther and the Sword of Power stood between the light of civilization and the darkness of the hordes. Victorinus was a pure-blood Roman, but he had fought alongside Uther for a quarter of a century, putting down rebellions, crushing invading forces of Saxons, Norse, Goths, and Danes. For how much longer could Uther’s small army prevail?

  For as long as the king lived. This was the great sadness, the bitter truth. Only Uther had the power, the strength, the personal magnetism. When he was gone, the light would go out.

  Gwalchmai entered the tent but stood in silence when he saw the king sleeping. Victorinus rose and drew a blanket over the monarch; then, beckoning to the old Cantii warrior, he left the tent.

  “He’s soul-weary,” said Gwalchmai. “Did you ask him?”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “What do you think, my friend?”

  “If he dies, we are lost,” said Gwalchmai. He was a tall man, stern-eyed under bushy gray brows, and his long silver hair was braided after the fashion of his Cantii forebears. “I fear for him. Ever since the betrayal …”

  “Hush, man!” hissed Victorinus, taking his comrade by the arm and leading him away into the night.

  Inside the tent Uther’s eyes opened. Throwing off the blanket, he poured himself some more wine and this time added no water.

  The Great Betrayal. Still they spoke of it. But whose was the betrayal? he wondered. He drained the wine and refilled the goblet.

  He could see them now on that lonely cliff top …

  “Sweet Jesus!” he whispered. �
��Forgive me.”

  Cormac made his way through the scattered huts to the smithy, where Kern was hammering the blade of a plow. The boy waited until the sweating smith dunked the hot metal into the trough and then approached him.

  “You have work for me?” he asked. The bald thickset Kern wiped his hands on his leather apron.

  “Not today.”

  “I could fetch wood.”

  “I said not today,” snapped the smith. “Now begone!”

  Cormac swallowed hard. “I could clean the storeroom.”

  Kern’s hand flashed for the boy’s head, but Cormac swayed aside, causing the smith to stumble. “I am sorry, Master Kern,” he said, standing stock-still for the angry blow that smacked into his ear.

  “Get out! And don’t come back tomorrow.”

  Cormac walked stiff-backed from the smithy, and only when out of sight of the building did he spit the blood from his mouth. He was hungry and alone. All around him he could see evidence of families: mothers and toddlers, young children playing with brothers and sisters, fathers teaching sons to ride.

  The potter had no work for him, and neither did the baker or the tanner. The widow Althwynne lent him a hatchet, and he chopped wood for most of the afternoon, for which she gave him some pie and a sour apple. But she did not allow him into her home, or smile, or speak more than a few words. In all his fourteen years Cormac Daemonsson had seen the homes of none of the villagers. He had long grown used to people making the sign of the protective horn when he approached and to the fact that only Grysstha would meet his eyes. But then, Grysstha was different … He was a man, a true man who feared no evil. A man who could see a boy and not a demon’s son. And Grysstha alone had talked to Cormac of the strange day almost fifteen years before when he and a group of hunters had entered the Cave of Sol Invictus to find a great black hound lying alongside four squealing pups—and beside them a flame-haired babe still wet from birth. The hound attacked the hunters and was slain along with the pups, but no man among the Saxons cared to kill the babe, for they knew he had been sired by a demon and none wanted to earn the hatred of the pit dwellers.