16: Victory
T
hey
sat together in a narrow gulley, overshadowed by couch-grass and gorse. They were talking, and waiting for night to come. The sunshine parched their mouths and the black flies crawled about their wounds, but they talked and gestured with spirit, for Earth Mother had smiled on them during the last days and had let them sack village after village along the chalk hills.
Now little more than half of the men who had set out from Craig Dun sat in the little valley. The others had either gone back to Earth Mother with an arrow in their throats, an axe-cut across the head, or they had started the long march back to their village under the hill, driving herds of sheep and cattle before them. The men who were left were those who had the greatest fame as warriors, or those whose
