Saxon Sword Read online

  Saxon Sword

  Book 10 in the

  Wolf Warrior Series

  By

  Griff Hosker

  Cover by Design for Writers

  Published by Sword Books Ltd 2018

  Copyright © Griff Hosker First Edition

  The author has asserted their moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  All Rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, copied, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the copyright holder, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  Dedicated to all my US Marine fans! Semper Fi!

  Prologue

  Myrddyn was dead. The wizard who had helped my father save our land from the Angles and the Saxons was now buried beneath the sacred mountain of Wyddfa. He lay in the same tomb as my father. My brother Gawan had buried him. That news was not common knowledge. Only a few knew that he was dead. Most of our people just believed that he was somewhere else. The travels of Myrddyn the wizard were legendary. For the last few years he had been rarely seen. Most of my people worshipped the old gods and Myrddyn the wizard was seen as someone who was greater than an earth-bound body. So long as the land of Rheged survived then there was a belief that Myrddyn and the spirits were responsible.

  My equites, my lords and my brother all told me we had much to be happy about. King Oswald had been defeated. Northumbria, which had been joined was now two Kingdoms, Bernicia and Deira. The closer of those people, the Angles of Bernicia, stayed in the east. Our ally, King Penda of Mercia, kept the south safe for us. Our world should have been more secure than at any time yet I could not rouse myself from the stupor and sadness at the death of the wizard who had made me what I was. I was Hogan Lann, the Warlord. I was Dux Britannica. I should have been happy and yet I was not. Not only had my family been taken from me, we had lost the island of Ynys Môn, Mona, and the lands around Wyddfa. There had been a time when my father had ruled the west of this island. We had been the last outpost of the Roman Empire. I had lost that. It was gone. We now controlled an island of land with Civitas Carvetiorum at its centre. The old Roman legionary fort was a bastion. Around us flowed a sea of Saxons, Angles, Hibernians and Picts.

  It was my brother, the wizard and warrior Gawan, who roused me from the self-indulgent pit of despair into which I had fallen. “Brother you need to speak with Myrddyn.”

  “Myrddyn is dead.”

  He nodded, seriously, “I know but that does not mean that you cannot speak with him. Go to his cave.”

  “His tomb?”

  “No, brother, do you not remember? He used to visit a cave a few miles south of Halvelyn. You went there with him. Copper drank from the magic pool! It was a special place for him. His spirit will be there.”

  My brother knew a world which I could not enter. It was the spirit world and he knew things I did not. If he told me to go there then I would but I knew not what I would find. “I just go to the cave?”

  “Go there, light a fire and drink this.” He handed me a small jug. “It will help you to enter the dreamworld.” He saw my worried look. “Brother fear not there is no poison here. You can trust in me.”

  “I know that Gawan but I am the warrior and you are the mystic. I am uncomfortable with this.”

  He shrugged, “Then do not go. This is the only way you can settle that which disturbs you.”

  He was right and I took the jug. I had neither wife nor child. I needed no farewells. However, my equites would not let me travel alone. Llenlleog insisted upon accompanying me with two of my scouts. Geraint and Tadgh. As we headed south through the steep sided valleys of the land of Rheged I was glad of their company. My warrior, Pelas, had been killed by a poisoned blade and he would have been with me otherwise.

  They all understood my mood. We did not need to fill the silence with empty words. They were alert to danger and that allowed me to enjoy the land we had protected from the Saxons. The journey south took us through high sided valleys with the brooding mountain, Halvelyn to the east. We had had to compromise with King Penda of Mercia. His people had been our enemies. When he had allied with King Cadwallon, then that had made us allies. Cadwallon was now dead but the alliance remained; for the moment. I did not think that there would come a time when we would be free from Saxons but I hoped for a time when we would not be swamped by them. Myrddyn had prophesied that the descendants of my brother would one day defeat the Saxons. Our blood would rule this land. I had to believe that would happen. If it did not then my whole life would have been wasted.

  Unconsciously my hand went to my father’s sword, Saxon Slayer. It was a link to the past. It was Roman and older than any other precious object that I possessed. It had come to my father from one of his ancestors. He had dug it up from a long-abandoned farm. I had to believe that there was some pre-ordered pattern to this. The sword had come to my father and that had begun the resurgence of Rheged. Myrddyn would return and he would tell me.

  It took all day to reach the cave. It was summer and there was little risk of rain for the skies had been clear. The path wound up through the trees and the cave itself was surrounded by a tumble of rocks. When we reached its gaping maw, we made a camp outside with a large fire and my scouts cooked the meat we had brought.

  “You go in alone, Warlord?”

  “I do. No matter what you hear do not enter. I will be safe. Myrddyn will not harm me.” Neither my scouts nor Llenlleog wished to accompany me.

  I walked into the cave. On my left was the pool which Copper had drunk from. According to my brother it was magical. I had yet to see evidence of that. I left Copper with my men and I entered the cave. I took a torch. The place was special. I felt it the moment I stepped under its foreboding ceiling. I saw kindling in the centre of the cave. The warrior in me wondered who had placed it there and then I realised this was a magical place. Logic had little to do with it. I made the fire and lit the kindling. The flames licked around the dried kindling and then flamed onto the logs. Suddenly the cave seemed like a warrior hall. There were four large logs around the kindling and I sat on one. What would happen? I was a warrior and the realm of the spirit world was not mine. It was the world of Gawan’s and Myrddyn. I was about to leave when the fire flickered. It was as though I was being spoken to from the Otherworld. This cave was a portal and I disobeyed the spirits at my peril. I had to obey. Taking the potion, I drank it down. I knew not what was coming but my brother had given me the draught and I would take whatever the Otherworld threw at me.

  All went black. It was as dark as I could remember. If I had not trusted my brother I would have been convinced that I was in the Otherworld already. Then I saw Halvelyn. It was below me and I was a hawk high in the sky. I knew I was a hawk for I could see my shadow on the earth as I soared high above the mountain. I spied the Reed Tarn. Then I saw another shadow. It was bigger than mine. It was an eagle. Was I being hunted? I had been hunted before but never as a bird. I swooped down, looking for shelter. As I flew I found myself over Wyddfa. I recognised the place we had found the blue stone and I dived towards it. As I raced earthwards I saw a black hole. It looked too small for me but as I drew closer, it grew larger and, folding my wings behind me I entered the blackness of the hole.

  I stopped and waited for the eagle to plunge after me and tear me apart. The hole had been larger than I had thought. Nothing happened. I put my wing to my face and it was not covered in feathers, it was my hand. I began to walk. In the dis
tance I saw a light. It was a blue light. I walked towards it and as I came closer to the light I saw it was a pool of blue water. Sitting on a rock in the middle was Myrddyn.

  “You took your time getting here. Did the bird frighten you, Warlord?”

  I nodded, “You were the bird.”

  “Of course. Gawan sent you, did he not?”

  “Wizard, you left too soon!”

  “I stayed too long! Your father’s time was my time and I stayed too long to protect you. The spirits are unhappy. This is wyrd.”

  “But my work is not done!”

  “Mine is! You and Gawan, not to mention Arturus, will have to make do without me.”

  I saw that his reflection in the pool was not a true reflection. It showed a young man. Was this the Myrddyn my father had first met? I looked into the water and I could not see my reflection.

  “What will become of me? Will I defeat the Saxons?”

  He shook his head, “Do not expect me to give you hope where there is none. The Saxons are spreading too quickly. Saxon Slayer cannot kill them all. You will lose.”

  “Then I should just accept their presence. I might as well give up.”

  He laughed and his laughter was so loud that ripples appeared on the surface of the pool. “You cannot do that. It is not in your blood. You will fight and you will die. Those that you love and care for will also die. The island that we live upon, all save this one will become Saxon. Only Rheged will remain. Save Rheged all will forget the old gods and all will be forgotten.”

  My head sank. All the deaths, all the pain, all the compromises we had made were in vain. My father had sacrificed himself and it was without a point. I put my hand down to draw the sword, Saxon Slayer. It was not there. It was gone.

  “The sword is but a tool. When you die then Arturus will not have it. Your people will no longer have the sword which holds such power. Arturus does not need it. His sword is his blood. It is his seed. He will die and the people will mourn but they will remember him. Many generations from now there will be another Warlord, and another and another. Each one will have someone like me. There will be a guide from the spirit world to help them. This land you love will change. Men will bleed and, in that blood, which seeps into this land, will be a strength and a steel which will conquer the world. Remember this pool. It is the home of the sword. This is where it must lie.”

  “And me?”

  “You will be forgotten. You will me a memory, briefly, and then a legend. You will be a story told around camp fires by warriors. The story will change and Hogan Lann will not even be mentioned. You will become a mailed warrior on a golden horse who saved folk from the Saxons. Your father, you, even Arturus will become one man. People will believe that you lived forever.”

  “I cannot, simply, give up.”

  “No, you cannot. You have to fight. You will face foes who are more terrible and fierce than any you have encountered thus far. One will kill you but that is not the end. That will be the beginning. Make Arturus your heir. Make him the last Warlord. Your father and I have a place of honour waiting for you. Fear not.”

  “But who is this enemy?”

  There was no answer for he had gone. I rose and found that my legs felt like lead. I waded into the water. It was icy. I slipped on a stone and plunged into the water. When my head broke the surface, I was back in the cave and I was in the magic pool of Myrddyn. I had had counsel but it was not the counsel I wanted to hear. It was the counsel of death!

  Part 1

  King Oswald

  Chapter 1

  My men had heard shouts from within the cave. They had heard splashing but they had been told to stay outside and they had obeyed orders. They were curious about what I had dreamed but they seemed afraid to ask. To be truthful I was uncertain what to tell them. Did I tell them that no matter what we did we would lose to the Saxons? You could not send a warrior into battle with those thoughts in his heart. I was unsure how I would manage it. I had been convinced that Saxon Slayer would, if wielded by a true warrior, defeat the Saxons. Now I had learned that the sword was just a tool and that Arturus who was still in the east with his mother, was the weapon which would, in time, see our people rise again. This was not the message I had hoped for when I had left my home.

  I smiled at them, “All is well. I have dreamed and I have spoken to Myrddyn.”

  Llenlleog asked, “And?”

  “And if Myrddyn wished you to know then he would send the dream to you. Come, it is time we rode home.”

  My answer did not satisfy Llenlleog. He was my first equite. I was aware that I was shutting him out. It did not sit well with me. It was getting on for dark when I saw the white walls of Civitas Carvetiorum in the distance. “I am sorry, my friends. I know that you wish to know what happened in the cave. All that I will say, until I have spoken with Gawan, is that I spoke with Myrddyn. He is in the spirit world but he did not give me the counsel I sought.”

  Llenlleog nodded, “That was ever his way, Warlord. When it comes down to it then swords will be needed and not magic. Magic can help us enter Din Guardi. Magic can make weapons of war which terrify the enemy but it will be a piece of steel which wins a battle and a warrior with a true heart who knows how to wield it.”

  I would not end Llenlleog’s dream but I knew he was wrong. No matter how brave the warriors we led we would, inevitably, lose.

  Gawan was waiting for me at the gate. His face showed that he knew what I had dreamed. I did not know how. He might have saved me a two-day journey and a night on a stone floor. I was being unreasonable. No matter what Gawan knew I had to speak with Myrddyn.

  “Take Copper to the stable. Thank you, my friends. I would not have done that alone.”

  Gawan put his arm around my shoulder. “It must have been hard to hear what Myrddyn’s spirit told you.”

  “What little hope I had before I entered the cave has now gone. There is no point.”

  He shook his head, “You are wrong. There is always hope. Arturus and his mother are on their way home.”

  “Then your family will be reunited. For that I am happy but it does not change things. We still lose!”

  “And yet the wizard we both trusted for our whole lives told us that Arturus’ seed would save our people.”

  “And that is so far in the future that… I cannot even see beyond the new grass! Arturus is barely become a man and has no wife let alone a child.”

  “You are not becoming a follower of the White Christ, are you brother? That is the way they think. We are at one with the land. The land endures no matter what people do. Our folk were here before the Romans and they will still be here when the Saxons are but a memory. Your task, and mine, is to ensure that our world survives even though a Saxon darkness descends.”

  Perhaps he was right. I threw myself into making our equites, squires and archers as strong as they could be. We had lost warriors like Pelas and new men needed to be trained. Agramaine had proved himself and he would be an equite. We had precious few of those. Our mounted horsemen were the greatest advantage we held over the Saxons. When our foes made a shield wall then the horsemen could fix them and our archers destroy them. Mailed and with lances our horsemen were feared throughout the land. The land had been visited by a plague. It had taken many of the warriors who could have fought our foes. It had made us weaker.

  King Oswald was still a threat. Along with his brother Oswiu they sought to make this whole island Christian and Northumbrian. I wondered if Arturus, who had left a youth, would come back a man. Would he be ready to take on his warrior duties? I hoped that he might have learned, as I had learned, of secrets from the east which would give us an advantage over our foes. While Gawan sought a mystical solution to the problem of Oswald I worked with Llenlleog and Kay to find a military solution. We sent Geraint and Tadgh to scout the land of Bernicia. When we had entered their castle and killed the witches we had hurt the King. He purported to be a Christian and yet he had used witches to defeat Myrddyn. Gaw
an had just said the Saxon was being practical and using whatever method he could.

  While my scouts were away we began training our squires and archers. We no longer had a huge army. Our battles had bled away the best and we could now muster barely two hundred men all told. I had just forty equites. All were worth twenty Saxons but when we fought it would be against twice that number. The Saxons bred well. They rutted like feral deer! We made some of our older squires who were now ready into equites. Youths who had shown promise became their squires. Our archers were not chosen they were bred. They had broad shoulders and powerful arms. They were harder to rear than even equites.

  Another of our strengths was our commerce. We had two ports: one in the north, Civitas Carvetiorum, and one in the south, Pasgentün. We used large ships to trade with the rest of the world. It cost us for we had to crew them with men who could fight as well as sail. They would all have made good equites. That trade, however, brought us riches denied the Angles, Jutes and the Saxons. It meant we would buy good iron and make good mail. We lived well and that was another reason Oswald sought to defeat us. He wanted that which we had. His White Christ did not help to drag them from their huts. They still lived like barbarians. We clung to the old ways and we lived well. We had stone buildings, walls and baths. We had retained the best of Rome. The barbarians had destroyed what the Romans had left.

  As well as having equites, squires and archers, we also had farmers, iron workers, miners and artisans who could fight. We did not take them as an army to fight beyond our frontiers. We used them to man our walls and defend our home. There had been a time, long ago, when we had protected our people and they had not needed to fight. That had ended with the loss of our lands and the death of the King. We had no King. The last members of the royal family had died. I had no doubt that there were some with the blood of King Urien in their veins but the throne was empty.