XXIVGlein was the first of the battles of Artos, and the leaves of autumn were falling from the trees. The turf of the Sussex Weald still grew thick and lush; flowers still nodded in sheltered places beneath the trees. The maturity of the year was echoed in the mellower sounds of the birds’ voices. It seemed a season of wood smoke and amber lights. Not one of blood.
Beyond the brow of a hill overlooking the River Glein, the Legion of the Bear was waiting. Below them, somewhere in the deep woodlands that bordered the sluggish river, lay their enemy, men of the Jutish Cantwara. A scout had ridden in the night before to say that these men, some of them old settlers in Britain, were on their way westward through the forests to join the Saxon kinglet, Aelle, and his son Cissa. The man had come
