The Druid and the Elephant

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Sample

Chapter One
The Rebel Queen

The sounds of distant battle pierced the forest: the blare of horns, the rumble of chariot wheels, and the clash of sword beaten upon shield. We left our horses in the deep woods and crawled to the edge of the trees. Across the adjoining fens ran a long narrow causeway, topped by a stone-flagged road, on which a century of Roman infantry had closed ranks to form a shield wall. My fists clenched at the sight of my enemies, those who had slaughtered my father and my fellow druids. The Romans faced north, towards a native warband formed up on a meadow at the head of the causeway. A thousand bare-chested tribesmen screamed death threats at the invaders. Mounted on a chariot at their centre, a tall, red-haired woman thrust a spear into the air. The gleaming gold torc at her throat marked her as the famous Boudicca, rebel Queen of the Iceni tribe. Around her stood her bodyguards, a white-robed druid, and musicians with war-horns and drums.
     “The Iceni outnumber the Romans ten to one,” said our druid guide, Segnorix. “After years of bloodshed and defeat, hope fills my heart. With any luck we can throw them off this island.” He twisted his head to face me. “What are their chances, Caz?”
     “See the bull mascot on those shields?” I said, “that’s the Ninth Legion. They’ve been fighting here since the invasion, when I was a boy. The Romans have beaten the Iceni before. They can do it again.”
     “Against so many? How?”
     “Steel, spirit, strategy.”
     “Will that be enough?”
     “Watch. You’ll see.”
     The Queen stabbed her spear at the enemy, the horns blared, drums thundered, and a line of chariots charged forwards over the grass leading to the causeway. The charioteers urged their steeds into a gallop, screaming their war cries.
     “They won’t scare the legionaries,” commented my engineer, Trenus. “See those drainage ditches on either side of the road? The chariots can’t jump them, and can’t get onto the causeway. They’ll never get into combat.”
As the chariots closed in, a dozen war dogs burst from the Roman ranks, and dashed towards the attackers, barking furiously. The horses shied at the sight of them.
     “Those aren’t warhorses,” scoffed my cavalryman, Eppilus. “They’re farm animals!”
     The charioteers lashed their steeds on. Reaching the edge of the marsh, the warriors gave a great shout and hurled their spears. Driven by hatred of the invaders and the speed of the chariots, the shafts arced upwards, then fell towards the Roman ranks, bunched up on the road.
     A signal rang out, and as one the legionaries raised their shields above their heads, interlocking like tiles on a roof, and the tribesmen’s spears clattered harmlessly away. With the war dogs almost upon them, the chariot drivers slewed around and retreated at full gallop, to the jeers of the Romans.
     Boudicca screamed in frustration. She leaped down from her chariot, and ran towards the enemy, howling her war-cry. Her bodyguards followed, and in a moment the whole warband was charging the Roman position. I felt the blood lust rise within me. I wanted to leap to my feet and charge, but I knew they were doomed and I would be throwing my life way, and those of my men. Better to watch and learn.
     In front of the Roman infantry stood their slingers, and as the tribesmen charged, the first missiles whiplashed towards them. Boudicca’s warriors sprinted, shields raised, into a hailstorm of Roman slingshot. Many fell, but their comrades leaped over the bodies and kept coming. The slingers fell back through their front line, and formed up behind, from where they began lobbing stones over their heads. The infantry readied their weapons.
     At fifty paces the first volley of Roman spears slammed into the tribesmen. The long, narrow heads penetrated the shields of the leaders, hitting the bearer or lodging in the wood, weighing it down and rendering it useless in a fight. Casting them aside, the tribesmen charged on. At thirty paces the second volley of spears hit, and this time the tribesmen had no defence. Scores went down.
     “Should have let the second rank take the lead,” said Lukon, my weapons expert.
     Leaping over their fallen comrades, the tribesmen closed on the Roman formation. The Roman slingers lobbed stones over their comrades’ heads and into the leaders, stunning many at such close quarters. The tribesmen raised their shields against the hail of rocks falling from above. The front rank of Romans ducked, and the rear ranks hurled a volley of heavy war darts straight into the charging faces. Men fell, screaming. Undaunted, the following natives pushed past and closed on the Roman shield wall.
     The Romans had one more trick. Every legionary carries a rounded stake for building fortified camps, and they had laid these down across the road in front of their shield wall. As the tribesmen crossed the last few paces, they had to run across these stakes, which rolled around under their feet, tripping many.
     As the charge faltered, the front rank of legionaries stamped forwards. Roman shield bosses smashed into Iceni faces. Steel swords ripped into unarmoured torsos. Screams of dying men drowned out the war horns as Roman armour and discipline overcame naked bravado.
     My body tensed and my fingers clawed the earth in frustration. I longed to be in combat. Years of training twitched my arms and shoulders, as battle-honed instinct took control. But I was in command, and my task was not to fight, but to watch and learn. Why were the Iceni not trying to out-flank the Romans? Was their only tactic a headlong charge? Where were their missile troops? Why no cavalry? Why attack the Romans on the causeway, where their flanks were protected by the marsh? Did Iceni warrior honour still look down on anything but face-to-face and hand-to-hand combat? Had they learned nothing about fighting the Romans in the long years since the invasion?
     A pile of Iceni corpses grew across the causeway. Injured men staggered away, tumbling down the blood-soaked slope and into the marsh. Before long, Boudicca’s bodyguards dragged her back out of danger, and the war-horns sounded the withdrawal. I heard a groan from beside me. Segnorix’s face was as white as his druid’s robes. “We’ve seen enough,” I told him. “Let’s get back to the horses.”
     Once there, his voice shook. “See what we’re facing, Caz? Boudicca’s rebellion will fail within days. The Romans will enslave us all. She needs you. Teach her how to win. I’ll talk to her druid and set up a meeting. The High Druid has sent you as his war leader; she’ll respect that. But it’s up to you to impress her. Show her what you can do.”
     I nodded. I knew just the thing: how to build killing machines that would strike fear into any warrior’s heart. With them, I would slay my enemies and avenge my father’s death. I set my men to work.

     The next night I met the rebel queen. Her command tent was warmer than the chill night air, but her welcome was icy. At the sight of me, Queen Boudicca’s eyes narrowed. “So, this is the High Druid’s spy, come to teach us how to defeat the Romans! Speak, let us judge your wisdom!”
     “To beat the Romans we must divide them, out-number them, and overwhelm them,” I told her. “Now the legions are far apart, the Ninth here, the Governor’s forces in the west, and the Second in the south. We must cut them off from each other and defeat them one by one. I have been killing Romans since they first set foot on our shores seventeen years ago. I know their strengths and I know their weaknesses, but most of all, I know their commanders. I know how they think, I know how they fight, and I know how to beat them.”
     The tall, red-haired Queen stared into my eyes, searching for any sign of weakness. My eyes are different colours: one pale green and the other icy blue. In my home village they called it the evil eye, and my father had to send me away to be a druid when the villagers cursed me as a child of ill-omen. My eyes strike fear in the hearts of many. The Queen was not disconcerted. She had a commanding presence. But I am a druid and a battle-hardened warrior. We held each other’s gaze.
     “Why should we trust him?” rasped a tattooed grey-beard beside her. “His loyalties are as divided as his cursed eyes. He looks like a traitor to me!”
The Romans had whipped the Queen when they had seized her lands after the death of her husband, and I saw the anger that drove her, so I gave her a reason after her own heart. “I want revenge,” I declared. “Revenge for the druids they killed on the Holy Isle, revenge for the sacred oak groves they burned, and revenge for my own father, killed in battle. The High Druid charged me to get the Romans out of the Holy Isle, out of our lands, out of our homes and out of our lives.”
     I stretched my arms aloft, then pushed back my hood to reveal the High Druid’s gift to me, a gleaming bronze circlet, a crown of power, forged by the ancients, graven with images of the war gods. “Here is his symbol: his promise to our people to destroy the invaders. I vow that I will not remove it until the last Roman leaves our land. The High Druid has faith in me. Do you not have faith in him?”
     The Queen snorted. “The High Druid just had his holy island taken from him by the Romans. The gods were not on his side. He’s fortunate that we are rebelling now, so the Romans have come here to fight. I need warriors, not druids!”
     Only a queen, made reckless by grief and anger, would dare question the High Druid. A violent demonstration of the consequences was demanded, and I had a plan to prove my mettle.
     “As a warrior, I can tell you that this tent is a death trap. The firelight casts your shadows through the walls, visible from afar. You stand out: you are tall, your hair is long, your shadow is easy to spot.” From my robes I took a horn hewn from the skull of a mighty bull, and blew a signal that reverberated across fen and forest.
     The tattooed grey-beard sneered. “The camp is well-guarded. Nothing can touch us here!”
     Three loud thuds smacked against the leather walls. Voices cried out and running footsteps sounded around the tent. Guards brought in a trio of blunted ballista bolts, and presented them to the Queen.
     “My warriors can kill from afar,” I told her. “These ballistas are now at your service.”
     The Queen’s eyes gleamed. “Had you presented this to me before, I would have broken the Roman shield wall. We would have beaten them. Andraste, goddess of victory, has sent you to answer my prayers. Where did you learn such things?”
     So I told her my stories, of the magnificent blood-stained horror that is Rome, and together, she and I went to war against the greatest empire the world has ever known.

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