Age of Iron by Angus Watson Read Free Book Online Page A

She’d still smell better than any of the men. She had a final look around the roundhouse and spotted a woollen shawl stashed on a high shelf. She reached it down and held it up to the firelight. It was better quality than the crap in the chest. There was a picture of a … badger perhaps … maybe a dog, embroidered on it. Unsophisticated and ill woven as it was, the lady of the hut had clearly been proud enough of it to keep it out of her children’s reach. It would be dark by the time it was cold enough to need it, so nobody would see the shitty design. Yeah, she’d take it. She reached into her old saddlebag and pulled out the gold brooch that Zadar had given her after a previous triumph. That would smarten it up a bit and might please Zadar. He certainly wouldn’t say, so she’d never know.
    She slipped on her light leather shoes, then changed her mind. Iron-heeled riding boots would tackle the hill better, particularly on the way back, when it would be dark and she might be a bit drunk. Good , she thought. Thinking about something as mundane as her outfit had dispelled the dread. Unless she thought about it. Danu! Now she’d picked off the scab, the stomach-lurching unease came spilling out again. Nothing she could do about it though, it would seem, so the only course was to ignore it and get on with things. Drinking would help. She tucked the shawl under her arm, shook her head and stepped out of the hut into the bright evening light.
    The hut was one of twelve similar huts in a circle around a central green, all surrounded by a low bank and shallow ditch. A spiked palisade topped half of the bank. It wasn’t newly cut wood, so some time ago someone had built half a palisade, which was about as useful as half a bucket. They must, she guessed, have started it ten years ago just before Carden Nancarrow defeated Barton’s champions, then thought, Why build defences when you were already conquered? and stopped. They’d found out why today. The Maidun army was unpredictable.
    East of the huts, glowing golden in the low sun, the land swept up to Barton’s hillfort. From the west came the noises, smells and smoke of the rest of Barton’s spring-line village, now the Maidun army’s temporary camp. Raucous laughter and the clang of iron from practice bouts reminded Lowa of a simpler time when she would have been billeted with the body of the army. The evening would have been drinking games to cheat at and sexual advances to avoid or enjoy, rather than a poncey party to endure. The smoky aroma of roasting meat from the camp made her stomach lurch with hunger, even though it was mixed with the sweet reek of horse shit.
    “Lowa! Lowa Flynn!”
    It was her sister Aithne and the rest of her girls, waiting for her. Aithne had one hand on a meaty hip, a no-complications grin on her freckly face. The girlish circlet of flowers in her hair clashed nicely with her absurdly short leather skirt. “Little more than a belt!” at least five unimaginative dullards at the party were bound to say. As if reading Lowa’s mind, Aithne turned and waggled her arse at her little sister. A good thumb’s breadth of bare cheek showed on either side. Lowa felt a small smile escape from under her previous gloom and she raised a hand in greeting.
    Usually only Lowa was invited to Zadar’s upper-ranks after-battle party, but because of their success in opening up Barton’s lines that morning, all six of her squad of mounted archers had been asked along. It amused Lowa that they’d waited for her. On the battlefield they’d charge anything, but the idea of walking without her into a party full of Maidun’s elite terrified them.
    “How’s Findus?” asked Lowa.
    “Out to pasture, happy. He was such a funny pig this afternoon. Grabbed an apple out of my bag when I wasn’t looking then trotted away like a prince, farting with every step!” said Aithne with a sing-song chuckle. Lowa’s sister loved horses. Lowa thought they were useful.