“Nine men left,” he panted.
The Romans stood away from him, where he stood dripping Roman blood. No one moved for a while, although Flavius dismounted and paced. The other Gaul came into view. Eodan remembered now that he had heard thumpings overhead. “This roof is made of stones, Master,” said the Gaul to Flavius. “We can tear it down, I suppose, but not easily. It would cost us men.”
“Likewise to break through the walls,” said the Roman. He spoke impersonally, as though this were no more than a school problem. Eodan wondered how much was left the man of joy and hope and even hate; the demons pacing Flavius had bitten him hollow.
“Arrows,” he said at last.
Eodan watched them make ready. Four soldiers were shield to shield, a few yards away. If he made a dash, they would be on him, and even a Cimbrian could not hold off four good men in the open. Three more strung their bows and put arrows point down in the ground before them ― slowly, carefully, grinning into Eodan’s emotionless face. Flavius and the Gaul dragged a post from a torn-down shed into view.
When everything was ready, Flavius stepped forth. “Do you see what I plan?” he called. “You can stand where you are and be filled with arrows, or you can close that door, which is only leather hinges, and wait for us to break it down.”
“I think we will wait,” said Eodan.
He shut the door, and darkness clamped upon his eyes. He heard the Roman arrows smite and wondered what impulse of fury made Flavius order them fired. He trod on a dead man’s hand and wondered what woman and child and horse would wait till time’s end for its caress.
“Back,” he said. “Into the pit, Phryne.”
She kissed him, a stolen instant among shadows, and was gone.
Feet thudded outside. The door, which he had not barred, flew open. Two black blots staggered through, the timber in their arms.
Tjorr met them as they reeled. His hammer boomed on iron. “Ho-ah!” he cried so it rang. “Yuk-hai-saa-saa! Come in and be slain!”
He stood in the middle of the room with Eodan. Each had a Roman shield and his chosen weapon, maul or longsword. They waited.
Dimly seen, a man pushed close to Eodan. His sword cut low, feeling for the Cimbrian’s legs. Eodan sprang back. His huge German blade whirled up so it touched the low ceiling. Down it came again, and the shield edge crumpled under it. Eodan raised his weapon once more, struck home and felt blood spurt over his hand.
Another shape, another thrust. He caught that one on his own shield, and the metal glided aside. The Roman shield pushed against the Cimbrian’s right arm, giving no room to use a sword. His hobnailed boot trampled down on Eodan’s foot, and pain jagged in its path. Eodan drove the boss of his shield into the Roman’s face and he heard a splintering. The Roman sank to the floor, dazed.
There were two more, now, in the belling, clanging gloom. They came in on either side, to catch him between them. He kicked out to the right, and his spur flayed open a thigh. As the shield dropped a little in the man’s anguish, Eodan smote. He struck a helmet, but the sheer force of it snapped the Roman’s head down. The man went to his hands and knees and crawled away.
Eodan had been holding the other off left-handed, keeping his shield as a barrier. Now, whipping about, he slid the rim aside and then back again, so that he locked shields with his enemy and held him fast. He reached over the top with his longsword and drove the point home.
“Ho-yo-yo!” chanted Tjorr, battering till it thundered. Eodan might have let out a Cimbrian howl, but he had no more wish for it. “Back!” he gasped to the Alan. “Back before they hem us in!”
Eyes were now used to the shifting twilight, the pale gray dazzle of the doorway. Eodan and Tjorr stood side by side, just in front of the rear support timber they had erected. Blood ran from their arms and painted their breasts; blood stained the sweat on them, and it was not all Roman this time. But men lay stricken before them; Eodan did not count how many. He looked across three slippery red yards of trampled earth and saw five men still on their feet. None were unwounded.
But weariness shuddered in him. His sword, nicked and blunted, had not bitten well; it was an iron bar in his hand, heavy as sorrow. He could barely hear the deep hoarse breathing of Tjorr, his own heartbeat and thirsty-throated breath were so loud.
Now that all the hunters were inside his den, it was time to destroy them.
Flavius crouched by the door. “Form a line!” he rapped. “Wall to wall! Drive them back and cut them down!”
Four Roman shields filled that narrow room, Flavius standing behind. Eodan raised his weapon and called, “Will you not try the edge of this even once, murderer?”
Flavius screamed. For one blink of time, over the advancing shields and helmets, through the wintry gloom, Eodan looked upon madness. It came to him that he should not have taunted an unbearable grief. The gods are too just.
Flavius raised his sword and flung it above the soldiers.
Eodan felt it strike him in the head. He staggered back, suddenly blinded with his own blood. The pain seared through his skull until he stood in a world that was all great whirling flame. He thought as he toppled, This also must a king have known, what it is to be slain.
The Romans cried their victory and moved in on Tjorr. The Alan threw down his shield, picked Eodan up with one arm, and swung his hammer. Even as it hit the pillar he had raised, he leaped into the pit and the tunnel beyond.
The timber slipped sideways. The piece it had helped carry, running lengthwise, fell. The thin branches cracked, and the roof of stones came down.
Eodan heard it dimly, from far away. Now the sky has been shattered, he thought, and gods and demons die in the wreck of their war. A star whirled by me and hissed into the sea.
He lay in the tunnel, as though in a womb, while the stones buried his hunters. There followed a silence that tolled. He heard Tjorr and Phryne calling to each other in utter night. Her hands groped for him. He lay in her hands and let the pain reach full tide.
It ebbed again. Tjorr dug a few feet upward. Breaking out into the open, he reached down, hauled forth Eodan and Phryne and whistled at what he saw.
“Best I catch the horses,” he said awkwardly. “You can see to him, can you not?”
She kissed her man for answer.
Eodan looked up at the sky. “Lie still,” whispered Phryne. “Lie still. It is well. We are safe.”
The wind blew softly, almost warm. The first snow fell on his face. “Have I been badly hurt?” he asked.
She told him plainly: “Your left eye is gone. Now I must love the right one twice as much.”
“Is it no more than that?” he sighed. “I thought my debt was greater. The Powers are kind.”
XXI
North of the city Tanais the Don River wound like a shining snake, like the lightning itself in a godlike calm, through rolling plains where horses pastured. In early summer the land blazed blue with cornflowers.
On the west side of the Don, from the Azov Sea as far northward as their might would take them, dwelt the Rukh-Ansa. They were a proud folk ― warriors, horse breeders, and weapon makers; their women walked with long fair locks garlanded and dresses of linen wind-blown around their tall bodies; their chiefs rewarded a bard’s song with golden rings.
Nonetheless, these were ill times, and, when Tjorr the Red came home, folk sacrificed bullocks in the hope that he carried better luck. From wide about the chiefs came riding, until Beli’s hall rang with their iron and the ale flowed merrily. They guested Beli not only to hear what his returned son could tell them of far farings, but because there had been tales of a king whom Tjorr had brought with him. Sorely did the Rukh-Ansa need a wise king.