The Aenir broke upon them like waves upon a rock, and the slaughter began. But at first it was the flashing blades of the Farlain that ripped and tore at the enemy, and many were the screams of the Aenir wounded and dying as they fell beneath the boots of their comrades.
Cambil forced himself alongside Tesk and all fear left the Hunt Lord. Doubts fled, shredding like summer clouds. He was calm at last and the noise of the battle receded from him. A strange sense of detachment came upon him and he seemed to be watching himself cutting and slaying, and he heard the laughter from his own lips as if from a stranger.
All his life he had known the inner pain of uncertainty.
Inadequacy hugged him like a shadow. Now he was free. An axe clove his chest, but there was no pain. He killed the axeman, and two others, before his legs gave way and he fell. He rolled to his back, feeling the warmth of life draining from the wound.
He had finally succeeded, he knew that now. Without his sacrifice Caswallon would never have had the time to escape.
‘I did something right, Father,’ he whispered.
‘Bowmen to me!’ shouted Caswallon. Beside him the silver-haired warrior, Leofas, stood with his sons Layne and Lennox. ‘Leofas, lead the clan towards Attafoss. Throw out a wide screen of scouts, for before long the Aenir will be hunting us. Go now!’
The clan began to move on into the trees, just as the sun cleared the eastern peaks. Many were the backward glances at the small knot of fighting men ringed by the enemy, and the eyes that saw them burned with guilt and shame.
Three hundred bowmen grouped themselves around Caswallon. Each bore two quivers containing forty shafts. They spread out along the timberline, screened by bushes, thick gorse and heather.
As the light strengthened Caswallon watched the last gallant struggle of the encircled clansmen. He could see Cambil in with them, battling bravely, and some of the women had taken up swords and daggers. And then it was over. The sword-ring fell apart and the Aenir swarmed over them, hacking and slashing, until at last there was no movement from the defenders.
Asbidag rode down the valley and removed his helm. He summoned his captains.
Caswallon could not hear the commands he issued, but he could guess, for the eyes of the Aenir turned west and the army took up its weapons and ran towards the mountainside.
‘Do not shoot until I do,’ he called to the hidden archers. Caswallon notched a shaft to die string as the Aenir spread out along the foot of the slope. They advanced cautiously, many of them lifting the face-guards of their helms the better to see the enemy. Caswallon grinned. He singled out a lean, wolfish warrior at the centre of the advancing line. At fifty paces he stood, in plain sight of the Aenir, and drew back on the string. The shaft hissed through the air, hammering home in the forehead of the lead warrior.
The Aenir charged …
Into a black-shafted wall of death. Hundreds fell within a few paces, and the charge faltered and failed, the enemy warriors sprinting back out of bowshot.
Caswallon walked out into the open and sat down. Laying his bow beside him he opened his hip pouch, removing a hunk of dark bread. This he began to eat, staring down at the milling warriors.
Stung by the silent taunt of his presence, they charged once more. Calmly Caswallon replaced the bread in his pouch, notched an arrow to his bow, loosed the shaft, and grinned as it brought down a stocky warrior in full cry, the arrow jutting from his chest.
The Aenir raced headlong into a second storm of shafts that culled their ranks and halted them. Caswallon, still shooting carefully, eased his way back into the bushes, out of sight. The Aenir fled once more, leaving a mound of their dead behind them.
A young archer named Onic crept through the gorse to where Caswallon knelt. ‘We’ve all but exhausted our shafts,’ he whispered.
‘Pass the word to fall back,’ said Caswallon.