As if in reply, the forest answered with a low groan and the shuddering creak of tree trunks cracking. The soldiers shouted-some pointing left, some right-as two huge oaks gave way on each side of the road, crashing to earth in a juddering mass of limbs and leaves. Knights on horseback scattered as the heavy pillars toppled, one atop the other, directly behind the last wagon in the train. The startled ox team surged forward, smashing into the stationary ranks directly ahead, overturning two horses and unseating their riders.
Trapped now in a corridor of flame and oily, pungent smoke, the wagons could neither turn around nor move off the road. The soldiers, still contending with the remaining pigs, strove to regain control of their mounts.
In the tumult and confusion, no one saw two furtive figures in deerskin cloaks rise from the bracken with pots of flaming pitch suspended from leather cords. Standing just beyond the shimmering sheet of fire, the skin-clad figures swung the pots in tight, looping arcs and let fly. The clay pots smashed into flaming shards, splattering hot, burning pitch over the sideboards of the nearest wagon.
The frightened oxen bolted, driving into the men and horses who could not get out of the way swiftly enough.
'Hold!' cried Guy. 'Drivers, hold your teams!'
But there was no holding the terrified animals. They surged forward, heads down, driving into anything in their path. Knights and men-at-arms scattered, desperate to get out of the way of the wildly scything horns.
Some of the soldiers braved the wall of flames. Turning their mounts, they jumped the burning logs and struggled into the bramblebound undergrowth. Those in the rearward ranks, seeing the flames and chaos ahead, abandoned their uncontrollable mounts and scrambled through the branches and over the fallen tree trunks blocking their retreat.
In the chaos of the moment, no one gave a thought to their trapped comrades; thoughts ran only to survival, and each man looked after himself. Once free, the men-at-arms took to their feet, running back down the road the way they had come.
The wagons were burning fiercely now, driving the horses and oxen wild with terror. There was no holding them. Everywhere, men were abandoning their saddles to flee the panic-stricken horses and flaming wagons.
Marshal Guy, his voice raw from shouting, tried to order his scattered retinue. With sword held high, he repeatedly called his men to rally to him. But the preternatural attack had overwhelmed them to a man, and Guy could not make himself heard above the clamour of beasts and men lost in the frenzy of escape.
In the end, he had no choice but to desert his own mount and follow his retreating men as they fled into the night. Working his way back along the riotous commotion of his flailing, devastated soldiers, Guy reached the rear of the treasure train and climbed onto the bole of one of the toppled oaks. There he took up the call to retreat. 'Fall back! To me! Fall back!'
Those nearest swarmed over the fallen trunks, tumbling into the road and pulling the stragglers after them. When finally the last man had cleared the fiery corridor, Guy allowed himself to be pulled away from the wreckage by his sergeant. 'Come, sire,' said Jeremias, tugging him by the arm. 'Let it go.'
Still, Guy hesitated. He cast a last look over his shoulder at the inferno the road had become. Terrified horses still reared and plunged, hurling themselves headlong into the flames; the oxen lay dead-most had been killed by the knights in order to keep from being gored or trampled; discarded weapons and armour were strewn the length of the corridor. The rout was complete.
'It is over,' said Jeremias. 'You must rally the men and regain command. Come away.'
Marshal Guy de Gysburne nodded once and turned away. A moment later, he was running into the flame- shattered darkness of a strange and hostile night.
CHAPTER
42
The sound of frightened, mail-clad soldiers in headlong retreat dwindled away, and soon all that could be heard was the hiss and crackle of the burning brush and wagons. For a moment, the forest seemed to watch and wait with breath abated, and then the scouring of the king's road began.
Seven men carrying spears leapt over the burning logs and into the fiery corridor. Clad in green cloaks, the hooded men made quick work dispatching any wounded animals. They then signalled the rest of their band, and within the space of six heartbeats, twenty more men and women crept out from hiding in the surrounding wood. Likewise dressed in long green cloaks with leaves and twigs and bits of rag sewn onto them, they were the Grellon: King Raven's faithful flock.
Quickly removing their cloaks and hoods, the Grellon set about quenching the flames of the burning wagons and surrounding vegetation-using hides that had been soaked in the stream. As soon as the fires were out, torches were lit and sentries posted, and the flock fell to their appointed tasks with silent and urgent efficiency. While some of the band butchered the horses and oxen where they lay, others led the living animals away into the forest. Once the animals had been cared for, the workers unloaded the still-smouldering wagons, carefully examining the cargo. Much had been damaged by the flames, of course, but much remained unharmed; everything was carried off to be hidden in the wood for later use.
Once the vehicles had been unburdened of their baggage, the ironbound strongboxes were prised from the planks before the wagons themselves were broken apart and hauled into the forest. The useable parts-wheels, harness, yokes, and iron fittings-would find their way back into service, and the rest would be scattered, hidden, and left to rot.
While the wagons were being dismantled, the discarded bits of armour and weapons, saddles and tack-as well as anything else of value-were heaped together in a single pile that was then sorted into bundles and carried off. Meanwhile, the leavings of the butchered animals were placed in a ready-dug pit near the road, which was then filled in and covered with bracken and moss, freshly dug elsewhere and transplanted. When everything of value had been salvaged, the tree trunks blocking the road were removed-an arduous task made more difficult by the necessity of having to work in darkness-and the pitch-bearing logs were rolled back into the underbrush; any scorched branches were carefully trimmed back to green growth.
Their work finished, the forest dwellers gathered up the meat of the slaughtered beasts and crept away, melting back into the darkness from which they had sprung.
When the sun rose upon the forest the next day, there was little to mark the odd, one-sided battle that had been fought in that placesaving only some singed tree limbs that could not be reached, broken earth, and a few damp, dark patches where the blood of an ox or a horse stained the road.
Loss of all goods and chattels under your care, loss of horses and livestock, loss of church property and sacred relics-not to mention loss of the treasure you were sworn to protect,' Abbot Hugo de Rainault intoned solemnly as he stared out the window of the former chapter house he had commandeered for his own use. 'Your failure is as ignominious as it is complete.'
'I lost no men,' Marshal Gysburne pointed out.
'Mon Dieu!' growled Hugo. 'Do you think Baron de Braose will care about that?' He levelled a virulent stare at the knight. 'Do you think at all?'
Guy de Gysburne held his tongue and waited for the storm to pass. Of the two men before him, the abbot was the more outraged and possessed far greater ability to make his anger felt. Next to the fiery Hugo's scathing excoriations, the irate Count Falkes seemed placid and reasonable, if perturbed.
'At the very least, Gysburne, you will be imprisoned,' said Count Falkes, breaking in.
'At worst, you face execution for malfeasance and gross neglect of duty,' said the abbot, concluding the thought in his own way.
'We were ambushed. I did my duty.'
'Did you? Did you?' demanded Hugo. 'No doubt that will be of great comfort when your head is on the block.'
'Execute a knight in service?' scoffed Guy; the bravado was thin and unconvincing.
'Do not imagine such a fate unlikely. The baron may think it worthwhile to make an example of you.'
Guy, standing at attention with his hands clasped behind him as he bore the brunt of their anger, now turned
