Chapter 11

The Village of Pertmig

Ky was once again looking down on a village scrambling to get women and children to safety as the warriors formed up to meet the oncoming host at his back. This was the third village they’d come to in the last four days and Ky’s soul was tired. He’d tried to reason with each of them, convince them to join Talogren and forestall what was going to happen. And both had refused him.

The massacres that followed each had been complete. Not a man had been left standing, and what happened to the innocents had been worse. He’d managed to hold Talogren to the agreement the leader had signed, which included provisions stopping the taking of any slaves in raids and victories. He’d been less successful in stopping the battle-high Caledonian warriors from their worst instincts.

It wasn’t just the Caledonii. The Romans had shown after the battle of Devnum and their sack of the Carthaginian wagon train and camp followers that they were equally as brutal as their northern neighbors. He hoped that, once he introduced less hands-on and brutal ways of fighting, they might be able to change the way the people of this time fought and, ultimately, how they thought.

He did manage to convince Talogren to take the orphaned children, of which there were many, back to friendly villages to be raised. After all, even though they had fought to keep from joining his league, they were still culturally all one people.

They had also made sure that a few survivors were sent to the next village after each victory, to spread the tale of what had happened to Talogren’s previous victims. Ky hoped that, in this at least, the destruction could serve a purpose.

At first, it seemed like this would just be another repeat of the previous two visits. Ky would go and demand they negotiate their surrender, agreeing to come to Talogren’s side, allowing his forces to continue their sweep along the northwestern edge of Britannia, where the holdouts were braced.

It was only as he rode up to the small gathering of headmen that Ky noticed something different. The first was that there were two women among the assembled men. The Caledonii were more accepting of a woman in ‘male’ roles than the Romans were, but so far he’d seen none engaged in combat or allowed to participate in negotiations, which made this a change. The other thing that jumped out at him was how much older the men were than they’d been with the previous delegations.

Those had been made up of an elderly headman and several young warriors. This time, the entire party, including the women, were old by the standards of the time.

“I’ve come to negotiate on behalf of Talogren and the Caledonian league and the Britannic Empire. We request...”

“We know your demands,” the headman said. “Your victims made their way to us, just as you intended.”

“I regret that you had to hear about the atrocities that happened to their villages and more so that those atrocities had to happen at all. I am here to offer you the same chance to avoid what might happen as I offered them. Talogren wants you to be part of his league, to see prosperity and security, but only as a contributing member. He cannot allow independent villages to remain in his rear, threatening the league and its place in the new Empire.”

“Although our warriors are strong and stand ready to fight, we understand the inevitable conclusion of what would happen if we do. For our wives and children, we are willing to surrender. With me are the headmen of Middale, Midstrath, and Borsbeg, which is every village south of Kincarn, who are also open to hearing what your commander has to say, if he will come and talk.”

Kincarn was what the locals called the mountain in his time named Ben Nevis peak, and represented a large portion of the remaining independent villages, leaving only a loose confederation further north standing separate from Talogren’s league. None were particularly large, but it was still a fair amount of people when taken collectively, none of whom Ky wanted to see slaughtered if he could prevent it.

“I am gladdened to hear you’re willing to talk about a peaceful settlement to this. You know who I am?”

“We may be remote, but even we’ve heard of the hand of death,” the headman said, his eyes falling to the sword Ky had sheathed against his saddle.

Ky knew he’d started getting a nickname among the Caledonii and wished it had been something a little less ominous, even if he’d earned the title over the last week.

“I see. Then I hope you will take my pledge of safe conduct back to Talogren’s camp, where we can discuss what will be expected of you. If you do decide to turn his offer down, I will guarantee you that I will return you unharmed to this same spot.”

“Before you kill all of us,” one of the other men said.

“Only if I’m left no other choice.”

“It appears we’re the ones left without choices. Go, we will follow you.”

Ky led them through the Caledonian horde that opened up as they approached and then closed in behind them like a tide rolling back in, the warriors all but snarling at the small group as Ky led them deeper into the Caledonian line. It had all been geared to intimidate the men and show them how hopeless their situation was.

Normally, Talogren was easy to find, sitting smack in the front of the line, ready to lead all of his men into battle. Before the first village they set upon, they’d agreed that if the men rode back to the lines with Ky, Talogren would pull back to the tent they set up ahead of time at the rear of the line, to force the men to see just what they were up against if they chose to turn the Caledonian leader down.

Talogren’s tent had a pair of the largest men they could find flanking its entrance flap as one last message before they ventured inside. Ky couldn’t imagine where they found these giants. Both men stood at more than six and a half feet and were twice as wide across as two normal-sized men. How anyone managed to move carrying all that muscle, seemed impossible. They were indeed imposing.

Ky pulled the tent flap aside and gestured for the men to enter. Talogren was already seated on the large chair in the back of the open tent, centered upon the doorway. It wasn’t quite a throne, but it wasn’t far off, especially when the visitors noted that it was the only seat present, except for the ground. They would either have to sit on the ground in front of Talogren, like children would in front of their father, or stand in front of him, clearly inferior. The Caledonii had even found a way to put together a platform for the chair to sit upon, lifting him up off the ground enough that, unless any of these men were like the two brutes outside, they remained at his eye level even while he was seated.

The throne-like chair was traditional among the north men, but Ky had made the suggestion of removing the other seating and building a platform to raise him up, so that at no point could the men look down on him. It was one more piece of the psychological puzzle that Ky wanted the headmen to confront, even though he’d started to despair that he’d ever get any of them this far.

They’d built the platform wide enough for someone to stand on it next to Talogren’s chair, which is exactly what Ky did as he walked around the headmen and moved into his position. He stood exactly next to the chair, the arrangement making it clear that Talogren was in charge without Ky standing behind him as a flunky.

“I’m glad you came to your senses,” Talogren said, breaking the silence.

“We had little choice. We’ve heard word of the slaughters that happened to the villages south of here. We are just as proud as any of them, but we are not fools. We can see when a situation is hopeless. Tell us your terms and then be on your way, so we may return to our lives.”

“I don’t think you understand yet what this is about. We are not here to raid you for slaves or grain,” the chieftain said, speaking slowly to make sure they got every word. “There are no terms. You will surrender and become a member of our league, or you will die. It’s as simple as that.”

“You say you aren’t here for our goods and people, but we heard your offer the first time, before you joined with the city shitters. You demand grain as taxes and men to fight in your armies. What’s the difference if they’re taken through coercion or agreement, they’re still gone.”

“When we aren’t at war, your men can return home, and the grain is to help feed those men while they’re in the field. In return that army will be able to defend you if the time comes.”

“What about the death worshipers? You say our men can return home when the fighting is over, but we’ve all heard stories of how powerful they are, and you’ve made us their enemy when you joined with the Romans. We won’t have any men left to defend us when they finish the Romans and continue into our lands.”

“Yes, I’ve heard the stories, which is why I formed this alliance with the Romans. The death worshipers never stop. They conquer everything their hand touches, which means it would only be a matter of time before they fell on us. Neither we nor the Romans were powerful enough to stop them on our own, but my hope is that together we might still survive.”

“A slave to one is no different than a slave to the other.”

“We aren’t their slave, we’re their equals, but I’m not here to answer your questions or prove our decisions to you. You can go back to your village and wait for our warriors, or join us. Which is it?”

“Fy nghynefin yq fy nefoedd,” the other man said, or at least that’s what Ky heard.

He’d grown so used to the real-time translation from Sophus, that he’d stopped noticing it until it was gone and all that remained was the speech as the man in front of him his used it.