It was a narrow doorway; only one person at a time could go through.
The Roman decurion advanced with an infantryman's long shield to guard
him. Eodan waited. The decurion charged in, behind him a pikeman.
Eodan smote at the first Roman's knees as the pike thrust for his
face. Tjorr's hammer struck from the right, knocked the pike aside and
snapped its shaft against the doorway. The decurion stopped Eodan's
sword-blow, and his own blade darted out. It hit the Persian mail-coat.
Eodan chopped at the arm behind it. He lacked room for a real swing,
but his edge hit. The decurion went to one knee. Eodan struck at his
neck--a hiss and a butcher sound in the air.
Another man followed the decurion, stepped up on the dying officer's
back and thrust mightily. Eodan slipped aside. Overbalanced, the Roman
stumbled and fell into the hut. Tjorr's hammer crashed on his helmet.
One of the Gauls sprang yelling through the undefended entrance. Phryne
fired an arrow, and the Gaul staggered; it had caught him in the arm.
Eodan attacked him from the side, and the German sword went home in his
leg. He fell down, screaming. Tjorr finished him off while Eodan went
back to the doorway.
"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."