Chapter 6
Chapter Six
From their hiding place in thick bushes beside the rushing water, Sorcha and her youngest brothers watched three Roman soldiers ride down the embankment to the stream.
Crouched low, Maonos, Drustan, Osgaros, and Eachann held their hunting bows in readiness, arrows trained on the invaders.
Would they be discovered and have to fire their weapons to escape?
Or would they get a chance to avenge their father’s death?
Sorcha touched the dagger at her waist. Fear, like a trapped bird, frantically beat its wings in her belly. She fought to quell it.
The soldiers scanned the stream and the sun-dappled clearing for danger.
The younger, black-haired one seemed to be in charge.
Leather trousers, a tunic covered by chain mail, and a plumed helmet protected his tall, muscular body.
A sword hung from a leather belt around his waist. The other men were similarly clad, but lacked his decorated helmet and air of authority.
They let their horses drink from the burbling stream. After a few moments, they lifted water bladders hung from their saddles and dismounted.
This was the opportunity to strike. Sorcha waited until the men were occupied at the waters’ edge. She pulled her dagger from its sheath, and signaled for their attack to start.
Thunk. Thunk. “Glggghhh.”
Two arrows loosed by the elder two of her brothers, Maonos and Drustan, had found their marks in the necks of the older men.
Arrows from Osgaros and Eachann whizzed wide of their target. One flashed over the Roman officer’s head to plonk in deep water. The other splashed his face.
Sorcha’s brothers pulled their swords from their belts and burst from the bushes with bloodthirsty battle cries, racing towards the collapsed men and the still unharmed soldier.
They ignored the gurgling, dying men to reach the third Roman, who faced the danger, his sword drawn.
The four boys ranged around him and parried his attacking thrusts.
Sorcha sheathed her dagger and held back from the fray to fit a stone into her leather sling.
Woojsh, woojsh, woojsh. She swung it above her head and watched for her chance to strike.
The soldier lunged forward at Maonos, the biggest of her brothers and the greatest threat to him.
Now!
Sorcha’s stone whirred through the air towards her target. Her aim true, the small projectile hit the Roman officer a glancing blow on the side of his head. The impact threw him off balance. He stumbled and pitched into the water.
She raced forward and leapt onto him, knees colliding with the small of his back. She grabbed his short, dark hair and forced his head underwater.
He struggled mightily, but she held on.
Anger flared and roared like a forest fire through her. She would have her revenge.
“Sorcha, stop!” Drustan, the second of Sorcha’s younger brothers, yelled.
“No!” Father’s death had to be avenged. “He’s a Roman dog. He deserves to die.”
Drustan tugged at her arm. “He looks important… valuable,” he said, his voice urgent.
“The Romans—his people, killed our father… your father.”
Drustan looked pained. “I know, but Sorcha, look at his helmet, his armor,” he yelled, pointing at the plumed helmet that lay on the ground beside the stream. “He’s useful—for exchange or ransom.”
Logic broke through her anger. Trust Drustan to recognize the man’s monetary value to them.
Sorcha relaxed her hold on the Roman, allowing his head to rise from the water. He bucked beneath her still, trying to free himself. She drew her dagger and coshed him on the head with its hilt. “We take him then, but tie him up well.”
Her brothers grabbed a limb each and dragged the Roman from the stream. They deposited his body on the mangled grass beside the stream.
“Even if he’s not good for ransom, he could provide protection for us.
If we’re trapped by the Romans, maybe we can trade him for our freedom.
Or we might be able to exchange him for our prisoners from Mai Dun, if the fortress falls,” Drustan explained as he and Maonos rolled the soldier onto his back.
They stripped off his chain mail and unbuckled his sword sheath, before retrieving the weapon from where it lay. Maonos bound their captive’s wrists together using rawhide thongs. Sorcha stuffed a linen rag into his mouth and bound it into place.
After securing the rope binding his hands to one of the pommels on his horse’s saddle, Eachann fetched their own mounts. They stripped the weapons and armor from the other Romans, then loaded the haul onto their ponies. The soldiers’ water bladders they filled and slung over their saddles.
Finally, they dragged the dead men’s bodies into thick undergrowth, where they covered them with leaf litter. With good fortune, that would delay their discovery by any search party sent to find them.
Taking one of the bladders, Sorcha made her way over to where the Roman lay, bound and unconscious. She poured water over their captive’s face. “Wake up, Roman dog.”
The dark-haired man spluttered, blinking rapidly. He struggled against his bindings for a few futile moments. Finally, he stilled and stared at her, but said nothing.
“I’ll ride his horse. He can walk behind us like a mangy cur following a wagon of butchered meat.” She would enjoy that.
“But Sorcha, he’ll slow us down if he walks. We need to move quickly before we’re discovered,” Maonos said.
“You’re right,” she said, with a disappointed sigh. It was true—where there was one Roman, there were bound to be more nearby. She must not let her desire for revenge blur her judgement. “Yes, they’ll be looking for him soon enough,” Sorcha agreed.
They tied him onto one of the boys’ ponies. He sat there looking ridiculously large. His long legs hung almost to the ground. It would be an uncomfortable ride for him.
Sorcha mounted his magnificent horse, leaving hers for Eachann, the youngest brother accompanying them, to lead. Maonos and Drustan rode the other Roman horses. She urged the soldier’s horse forward, which set the pony in motion, jerking the Roman forward.
He regained his balance with difficulty. He was clearly still groggy from the blows to his head and blood flowed from the slingshot wound, but Sorcha didn’t care.
They headed north from the watercourse at a fast pace, forcing the soldier to cling to a saddle pommel with his bound hands. They needed to catch up with the rest of their party and warn them about the Romans soldiers in the vicinity.
The sooner Sorcha delivered the women and children to Dun Cam, the better. Their enemies would show them no mercy if they caught them.