Chapter Twenty-two The Valley of Death
Chapter Twenty-two
The Valley of Death
The next morning dawned cool and bright. A seeking wind blew in from the northeast, but the sun warmed the backs of the Northumbrian fyrd as they rode.
Like the day before, Hea and Oswald traveled with the supply wagons at the back of the rearguard, while the rest of the army rode some distance ahead. As they rode, the landscape became gradually hillier, rocks jutting out from the deep green of the hillsides.
Hea watched her surroundings, her breathing gradually becoming shallower; anxiety curled in the pit of her belly. Although she had never been so far north, this rugged land felt familiar somehow to her.
I’ve seen it before.
Yes, she had … in that vision. The one where she had also witnessed the slaughter of the Pict army.
The sight disquieted her. Last night, unable to sleep, she had sat in her tent and beaten her seeing drum, in an attempt to cross to the other side.
Yet the trance state that usually came so easily had eluded Hea.
The spirit world did not reach out to her.
It was the first time that had ever happened, and it unnerved her.
What if I have lost my gift?
The worry plagued her once more as Rowan picked his way up a stone-strewn hillside. They had just passed a still, dark mere and traveled toward higher ground.
This is my doing …
Hea’s stomach twisted. If she had not had that vision, Ecgfrith would not have been so confident in this campaign.
She had seen his victory, but now she doubted everything.
All her instincts screamed danger, but her attempts to dissuade the king had fallen upon deaf ears. And now he had turned on her.
King or not, Ecgfrith of Northumbria was someone she was starting to hate.
Her mother had thrown away her happiness for him. Lewren had once been young and beautiful, she could have chosen any man and yet she had fallen for one who could never love her in return.
You should have told me, mōder. I deserved to know.
Anger curled up through Hea. She felt betrayed … by all of them. Her life, her identity, had been a lie. Suddenly she felt like running away, finding a cave or a hut deep in the forest and living alone, shunning the world and its disappointments.
Tears pricked at her eyelids, but she blinked them back. Weeping would not help.
The hillside led up into a gorge; a steep-sided valley that forced the wagons to slow. Emerging from her brooding, Hea took in her surroundings once more, panic gripping her chest when the sense of recognition grew stronger.
This was it … the valley from her vision. The valley of death.
“Hea … what’s wrong?” Oswald’s voice caused Hea to start. He was riding at her side, his gaze wary as he studied her face. “You look as if you’re about to faint.”
Hea wet her dry lips, unable to speak. She glanced ahead at the sea of warriors, their spears bristling against the green sides of the valley.
A moment later, shouts reached them. They were faint, from much farther up the valley, but Hea instinctively knew what they meant.
She reined Rowan around, her face panicked as she caught the priest’s eye once more. “We must turn around,” she gasped. “We need to ride … before they—”
More shouts, this time from behind them, cut Hea off mid-sentence. Both she and Oswald craned their necks, their gazes traveling past the last of the wagons, to see a company of riders burst into the valley.
“God’s Bones!” The panic in Oswald’s voice mirrored her own.
Even from a distance, it was clear the approaching horsemen were not Angles. They were dark-haired men with blue swirls decorating their pale skin. Plaid cloaks billowed like wings behind them as they galloped toward the rear of the Northumbrian fyrd.
Hea glimpsed the glee on their faces, the triumph, and knew a moment of pure terror.
She had warned Ecgfrith, but he had not listened. The Picts had laid a trap for them … and they had ridden straight into it.
The valley rang with the clank of iron and the grunts of men. The two armies fought in close combat. The cries of the injured and the dying as they fell—only to be trampled underfoot—echoed off the sides of the gorge.
Bridei urged Croí Cróga through the crowd, slashing his blade at the men who lunged for him. Likewise, the stallion bit, and kicked, at any warrior that ventured too close to his massive feathered hooves.
Croí Cróga had been bred for battle, and yet Bridei was about to dismount—for it was safer in the confined space—when he spied a warrior on horseback coming for him.
Ecgfrith of Northumbria was not a big man, but dressed for battle upon the huge, chestnut warhorse he was a magnificent, terrifying sight.
He carried a great, round, oaken shield with an iron boss upon it slung across his left arm, and a double-edged sword in his right hand.
A heavy iron helmet, with a nose plate and eye-slits, obscured half his face.
A fine wolf-pelt cloak billowed behind him as he rode.
Sunlight glinted on the chain-mail that covered his chest.
Bridei saw Ecgfrith’s face, twisted with wrath, his teeth bared, as he came for him.
Guiding his stallion with his knees, Bridei urged Croí Cróga forward and raised his square shield. The horse surged on, and Bridei braced his body for the shattering impact that would come.
The two men met in the midst of the valley. Warriors—Pict and Angle alike—dove out of their way.
Ecgfrith swung first, his blade slicing through the air.
Bridei slammed his shield upward, his arm jarring as iron bit into wood.
Ecgfrith snarled, drew his seax from his waist, and slashed at his opponent—the sharp blade cutting through the thick leather of Bridei’s breeches, and biting into his thigh.
Bridei gritted his teeth against the pain and drove his own blade up under Ecgfrith’s guard.
This blow was the deciding one, for it cut through Ecgfrith’s chainmail vest and slammed home, up under his ribcage.
The two kings’ gazes met, and Bridei watched Ecgfrith’s hazel eyes widen.
It was a killing blow, they both knew it.
Ecgfrith was dead.
Bridei looked down at the Northumbrian king’s corpse, surprised at how little he felt. He had expected jubilation; a fierce sense of vindication against the man who had once made his life a misery.
Yet he felt nothing.
Ecgfrith lay on his back, his eyes staring skyward. He wore a stunned look on his face, as if he had denied death even as it came for him.
Bridei clenched his jaw. Ecgfrith’s end had been too swift, too painless.
He had wanted to see fear in his foe’s eyes before he finished him; he had wanted him to plead, to beg for his life.
Yet the Northumbrian king had died a warrior’s death, proving that despite Bridei’s hatred for him, Ecgfrith was no coward.
Like many of the kings ruling the southern lands of Britannia, Ecgfrith had been a battlelord.
Glancing up, Bridei took in his surroundings. The stench of blood and offal assaulted him on all sides, and a carpet of bodies now filled the gorge where the two armies had made their final stand.
Unbeknown to Ecgfrith, Bridei had a number of warriors in reserve waiting to the north—and when the Picts rode into this valley, their reinforcements joined them.
They had hit the Northumbrians with a hammer blow, a strike that the Angles had never recovered from.
The Picts had held nothing back. This was their chance, the moment Bridei had been waiting for.
He had deliberately baited Ecgfrith in the south, and then let him believe he had the stronger army.
It had been galling to retreat, to let the Northumbrians believe victory lay within their grasp.
But in the end, his tactic had paid off.
Bridei, limping slightly from the cut Ecgfrith had given him to the leg, moved a few yards farther down the valley, to where Heolstor was sitting upon a boulder, recovering from the fight. A tangle of bloodied bodies spread around him; all men Heolstor had cut down at the bitter end of the battle.
Bridei met his friend’s eye and grimaced. “Was it not hard to kill these men? They were once your brothers.”
Heolstor snorted. “They ceased to be my brothers years ago. I’m a Pict now.” He then favored Bridei with a fierce grin. “Well met, Lord. You were right, I should have had faith.”
Bridei barked out a laugh but did not reply. He was too exhausted, too sore, and his leg hurt. Looking down the valley at a sea of bodies with broken standards and spears thrusting skyward, Bridei considered the path that had brought him to this moment.
My birthright.
He had done what his father had not—broken from the yoke of Northumbrian rule and freed his people. He was now the rightful king of the north—the Kingdom of Fortriu—and there was no one alive who would dare contest it.
Bridei’s gaze swept back to where Ecgfrith lay, his wolf-skin cloak, stained dark with his own blood, spread out beneath him. And as Bridei watched, a raven landed on the Northumbrian king’s forehead and plucked out his eye.
Dusk settled over the Pict camp, painting the sky blood-red. Bridei marked it as he strode toward the edge of the encampment, and allowed himself a rueful smile.
The Warrior—god of battle—saluted them.
“How many Northumbrian survivors?” he asked Fearghus.
“Twenty-five, although some of them won’t last the night,” the warrior, who walked to his right, replied.
Bridei nodded before he glanced to his left, at where Heolstor strode. “Fancy a Northumbrian slave?”
The warrior grinned back at him. “Only if he doesn’t eat much.”
The three of them walked to the edge of the camp, through a wide entrance to where a great low hearth burned.
The Northumbrian captives clustered around it; a ragged, bloodied group of men.
Bridei’s warriors had constructed a wood and hide perimeter around the captives, hemming them in.
Even so, Heolstor had placed men outside, and they would stand guard all night.
Just in case a desperate Northumbrian warrior decided to try and make a run for it.
A warrior should die in battle. That was an honorable death—while capture stripped a man of whatever honor he had once possessed.
Bridei stopped at the edge of the group, his gaze sweeping over the collection of weary faces. One of the men closest snarled at Bridei before spitting on the ground. Next to him, a young warrior had gone the color of milk at the sight of the Pict leader, although his eyes glittered with venom.
Bridei ignored their hate-filled stares, as he found himself looking for familiar faces. He had lived among the Northumbrians for so long, he had expected to recognize some of the men here. Yet they were all strangers to him.
All but a huge blond man who lay upon his side. The warrior’s hair was a shade of yellow that Bridei had never seen on anyone but one man. The lump on the warrior’s nose, caused by Bridei’s own fist, confirmed the man’s identity.
Rinan.
The warrior did not look in a good state: blood soaked his leather armor and even from this distance, Bridei could see a number of lacerations that marked his right flank and thigh. Rinan was too weak to sit up, yet his pale blue eyes were hard with an unspoken challenge.
Next to Rinan sat a slim, dark-haired man. Dressed in a brown habit with his hair shaped into a tonsure, the man scowled at him. He was trying to brave, but it was a thin veneer. Bridei could smell the fear coming off him in waves.
Bridei gave a grim smile. Ecgfrith had brought a priest north with his fyrd, but it had not helped him.
Bridei was going to look away then, to issue an order to Fearghus, but instead, he saw something that made him pause.
His gaze strayed to a cloaked figure a couple of yards behind Rinan.
Sitting hunched, his back leaning up against the perimeter fence, the man was much smaller than those surrounding him—and unlike the others, he wore a large hood, which hid his face from view.
Bridei frowned. Had they caught a lad?
“You,” he called out, his voice carrying across the space. “The cloaked one. Lower your hood.”
Silence fell around the fire. There had been little conversation, just low mutterings and the occasional groan from one of the injured, yet now they all grew tense, their gazes shifting to the cloaked figure in their midst.
“You heard the king,” Heolstor called out. Besides Bridei, he was the only other man in the Pict army who spoke the tongue of the Angles. “Lower your hood, boy.”
A few moments followed, before a pair of slender hands lifted and pushed back the hood, revealing a shock of unruly auburn hair, glittering green eyes, pale skin, and a full mouth.
Bridei’s breath caught.