Saxon Dawn (Wolf Brethren) by Griff Hosker Read Free Book Online

you need from our hut and then I will burn it.  We will then burn all the huts.” My last decision was made out of spite.  I knew the Angles would come and I did not want them to benefit from our work and then I had another idea.  My spirit hardened with resolve.
    I went into the hut and retrieved my wolf skin.  I found father’s and brought it out.  I picked up my shield from where it had fallen. “There is father’s wolf skin cloak if you want it.” I held it to the two of them.
    Aelle nodded kindly.  “He was your father Raibeart and it will fi t you better.” I was gratified that my two brothers got on so well without any arguments.
    “If you wish anything from the Angles then take it.” They looked shocked. “They are well armed and armoured.  Much as I hate to take what is theirs it is better than what we have.” I shrugged. “It is up to you.”
    I had my sword, and although my brothers knew it not, I also had a mail shirt but I had no helm. I went to all the bodies and searched until I found one which fitted.  I noticed that the owner had a leather cap beneath and I took that. I saw that Aelle and Raibeart had taken a shield apiece and Raibeart was struggling to remove a mail shirt from an already stiffening body.  I helped him to remove it and he donned it.  It was slightly too big but he would grow into it. I found a short sword which I gave to Aelle and while I did so Raibeart found his own. “Put all the other weapons into our hut and then fire it and the others.”
    “What will you do brother?”
    “I will leave a message for the Angles.”
    My brothers raced away and I performed my grisly task. The hardest one was the first but I was helped when I remembered what they had taken from me, my family.  By the time I had finished I was cold and numb.  There were no feelings left. I sought the spears which both sides had used and had placed them in a circle in the middle when the last hut was fired.
    I had just finished leaving my message when Aelle let out a gasp of horror.  He looked at the twenty heads arrayed on spears in a circle; I had just found the nearest twenty warriors and it seemed an appropriate number.  The others I left where they lay as a reminder to our enemies that there were still Britons ready to fight them. My two brothers looked at me, I suspect seeing a different person from the one who had taught them the bow. “They will now know that someone survived and that they were defeated.  Today we do as father had wished, we go to war with the Angles.
    I had taken food before we left the hut and, when we reached the flock and Wolf, we just collapsed on the ground and ate.  Wolf sensed something was amiss and nuzzled into me licking my hand gently. Raibeart and Aelle slept beneath father’s cloak and I drifted through the nightmares of dead Roman soldiers and decapitated Angles.
    When I woke I was resolved.  Wolf wandered over and licked my face and I looked at my two brothers who were still sleeping. They were, now, whether they wished it or not men and warriors.  They had killed their first men and those Angles would not be their last. We could no longer be farmers and so we would become hunters; hunters of the invaders. I would trade the sheep; we could not tend to them and we would barter them for something useful. There was a village south of us called Aelfere close to the Roman road.  Men there did trade with those who used the road.  I knew that it was perilously close to the Roman fort which I knew to be held by the Angles but I hoped that we would be able to discover news of where the enemy were.
    “Come on lazy bones.  We have many miles to walk.”
    As we trudged down the road, with Wolf herding the sheep Raibeart quizzed me about our future. I reminded him of father’s last words.  “We will find the house or the house of father’s grandfather after we have traded the sheep and then we will become warriors and fight the enemy.”
    Raibeart looked