I had taken no ill at his assumption of command. In a situation like this, Orvic was far more capable than I.I turned to my two companions. "Let's go."
Half an hour later, out of breath from running to Orvic's summons, I reached out and laid my hand on the bark of a tree that leaned drunkenly out and away from me. Beneath me was a sheer precipice, falling almost straight down for what must have been at least fifty paces to a great pile of rubble and scree containing the skeletons of other trees that had obviously fallen from the edge where we stood. It took no great imagination to see that the face of the cliff had been flaking away since time began. Beyond the rubble at its foot, the ground was grassy and fell more gradually, but still steeply, for almost half a mile further before it began to level out towards the valley bottom. I was on the very edge of a long, forest-crowned escarpment, which rose higher to my right as the ground sloped steeply upwards, and from somewhere up there a stream swept outward over the edge and fell, glittering and splendid in the strong sunshine, to dash itself to foam on the rocks below before swirling on down to join the river in the valley bottom.
We had no eyes for any of the beauty surrounding us. We were aware only of the fight in progress directly below where we stood, less than a mile from us.
"Foreigners. They're all Outlanders." The words were little more than a growl in Orvic's throat. I glanced at him, taking in the fierceness of his scowl and the heavy displeasure in his eyes.
"The attackers are, anyway," I agreed. "They look like Saxons."
"Aye, they are, of some kind. But the others are Outlanders, too. They're not from Britain, least not any region I've been in."
"Can you be that sure from up here?" I squinted against the sunlight that was beating on us from almost directly in front, trying vainly to see details that Orvic had obviously seen. "I can't see them well enough to notice a damn thing odd about them. What do you think, Curwin?"
"No use asking me. I'm as blind as you are, but if Orvic says they're Outlanders, then they are. He's the one with the hawk's eyes."
I glanced behind me to where Donuil, the fourth member of our party, stood looking out over my shoulder.
"What about you? Can you tell who they are?"
Donuil shrugged, shaking his head. "No," he said, "but they're well dressed and well organized. They know what they're doing, but they're too badly outnumbered to survive much longer."
His final words had echoed my own thoughts. I looked back down, cursing the distance and the impossibility of getting closet There seemed to be about eighty to a hundred in the attacking party, who were easy to identify as Saxons by their large, round shields. The group opposing them looked to be between twenty and thirty strong, and had occupied a ruined farmstead in the valley bottom, making use of the tumbled walls and outhouses to defend themselves.
"Must be bowmen." This was Orvic again. "Look, you I can see how the other whoresons are hanging back, hiding. And there's a few of them lying out there in the grass, see? Some dead, some alive. Have to be bowmen down there, keeping them pinned. Otherwise there'd be nothing to stop them from just running in and killing the lot, three to one..." He grunted to himself again, sounding surprised. "You know, I think them others are Romans."
"What?" His words surprised me. "What d'you mean?"
He looked at me as if I were soft in the head. "Romans, you know? From Rome. They're wearing white, most of 'em. Whiter white than I've seen in many a day."
"By God, you're right, they are." My mind was racing. "How well do you know this part of the country, Orvic?"
His answer was gruff. "Not very well, but enough. Why?"
"How far are we from our camp?"
He looked around him, seeming to sniff at the windless air. "Less than a mile, if we could fly. Closer to three by the path. We've been moving in a great circle. What's in your mind?"
My half-formed idea had evaporated before he finished speaking. I shrugged my shoulders and nodded downward, feeling oppressed and helpless. "Oh, not much of use. If those are Romans, and now I think you're right, then they are here for the same purpose we are. They're headed for Verulamium. I was trying to think of some way to help them. My first thought was to bring our cavalry, but there's no time, and anyway, I was grasping at straws. I forgot about this cliff for a moment."
He grinned and nodded towards our left. "No, your horses couldn't jump down that, not here they couldn't. But they might, if they was to come round to the north over there, about a mile further down."
"What? How?"
"By the road. It comes down on the far side of the old farm, there." He turned his head, looking up along the cliff to the south. "You see that waterfall? That's the same stream you're camped beside. It runs under the road, through a culvert. You remember?" I nodded, waiting. "If you was to send your man Donuil up there, to run along the stream bed, he could be at the camp in no time, being the runner he is. Then he could bring your horsemen round by the road and have 'em in place almost by the time we get there."
"Get where?"
Orvic turned back towards the valley and pointed. "Down there, boyo. That's as nice a place as I've seen for a bit of target shootin'."
As I looked at the spot he was indicating, Curwin stepped to my side, handed Orvic his bow, then unslung his quiver from around his shoulders and handed that over, too. Then he turned without a word and began striding off into the forest behind us.
"Where are you going, Curwin?"
"Arrows. I'll catch up."
I turned back to Orvic, who was shrugging the second quiver over his shoulders to lie alongside his own, but before I could speak he nodded to Donuil.
"Can you do it, boyo? Run along the stream up there to your camp and fetch the others?" Donuil glanced at me, then nodded. "Then go, fast as you can! We'll be down there when you get there, and there's trouble we may have, so waste no time on the road. Get you gone."
As soon as we were alone, Orvic drew two short pieces of leather thong from the scrip at his side and began binding his own bow and Curwin's together. I watched as he finished by slinging the double bow across his shoulders, the staves to the front and the strings across his broad back. Then he leaned outwards, scanning the cliff face below.
"Where did Curwin go?"
Orvic looked back at me, a tiny frown of impatience on his face.
"He told you. To get arrows."
"But he had arrows. He gave them to you. Where will he get more?"
"Saddlebags. Didn't you see 'em?"
I shook my head. He knelt on one knee, placed his hands on the rim of the precipice, and leaned over further before looking up at me again. I drew a deep breath and squinted towards the spot he had pointed out earlier, then moved forward and looked down from the edge. "You think we can get down there?"
He hawked and spat out into space. "Oh aye, no trick to that. Trick is to do it alive, and at our pace."
I filled my lungs, held the air, then released it through pursed lips. "Fine then. You go first, and I'll follow. But what about Curwin?"
Orvic was already on his belly, his legs over the edge. "What about him? He'll come after us. We'll wait for 'im at the bottom, then he can lower the extra arrows down to us." He lowered himself gradually until his head disappeared below the edge, and as his fingers followed, his voice came back up to me. "It's not as bad as it looks, once you've your face to the rocks. Just come slow now. I'll guide your feet the first few steps until you get the hang of it."