Pendragon and the Mists of Britannia (Pendragon Legend Book 2)

  Pendragon

  and the

  Mists of Britannia

  C.J. Brown

  the Pendragon

  Legend

  Book One: Merlin's Tomb

  Book Two: The Mists of Britannia

  Copyright © 2021 by C.J. Brown.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  Contents

  1. Narrow Sea

  2. The Fog Lifts

  3. Welcoming Party

  4. Your Grace

  5. Mehmet

  6. Merlin

  7. Genie

  8. The Sacking of Paris

  9. Dinner

  10. Caledonia

  11. Attila's Navy

  12. Five Dragons in Disarray

  Newsletter

  About the Author

  1

  Narrow Sea

  Early spring in the Narrow Sea that morning felt like the depths of a Roman winter as Bishkar, general of the Hun army, sailed in pursuit of a small band of exiled Romans fleeing the continent. The frigid Arctic air rushed across his weather-beaten face as he stood on the galley of the merchant ship, Nostre Dame, unfazed by the effects of the wind and tide.

  The ferocious waves of the incoming tide raised the vessel’s bow, pointing it high toward the azure sky, before slamming it back down on to the blue waters of the channel. The resulting ocean spray flew past the deck, drenching Bishkar, soaking him to the bone. Over and over again the rise and fall repeated as the ship sailed north at first, then tacked to the northeast.

  Jean Montcliff, captain of the Nostre Dame, was a gaunt man past his prime. The years of fighting in the Gaelic navy, and the lack of proper training to do anything else, saw him much worse for the wear than a man twice his age. Thinning hair, primarily from the lack of proper nutrition at an early age, was just one of the main features of his face that told Bishkar that he could wield this man to do anything with the promise of money.

  The vessel was more than capable of catching up to the Roman flotilla, but Bishkar chose to hang back. Dripping salty water from his bushy mustache, he remained resolute. His eyes were fixed on his objective in the distance. Bishkar had decided that he wanted to study his prey and the environment that would cradle them. He wanted to ingratiate himself within their ranks, get to know them from the inside, step up close to the patriarch and the general, then destroy them from within.

  It was the only way, Bishkar believed.

  Pouncing on Arthur and his father now would not have the desired result. For one, Bishkar did not have his army behind him. More importantly, he was well aware of Arthur’s ability to overcome surprises. The Battle of Verona had made that abundantly clear. Infinite odds, stacked against Arthur at dawn, had evaporated and, by nightfall, the tide had turned to see the mighty Hun army decimated, and its general torn from limb to limb.

  General Adolphus had erred, Bishkar surmised.

  The young general, now in his late thirties, and a loyal soldier-turned-general to Attila the Hun, was the exact opposite of Adolphus, his predecessor. He observed everything and took time to act, leaving nothing to chance, omen, or faith. He calculated that the battle now raging in Paris would see Attila vanquish the Frank, or at least a large part of them. The men in his army needed a fresh win, one that filled their purses and emboldened their spirits.

  As the vessel advanced, it began to tangle with the weather that swirled around the isles. Britannia had always been known as a magical place. Mysterious in its ways, it held a sense of awe for some and a quiet trepidation for others. This was in part because of the fog that perpetually hung over it. Bishkar could still see his prey, but the fog from the east was already rolling in and threatened the mission.

  Nostre Dame had once been a ship of war. A trireme now refurbished and re-tasked as a supply ship, she plied the Narrows daily, filled with fabric, grain, and weapons. The owner, a wealthy nobleman, sat comfortably in Marseilles, trusting his business to men like Montcliff.

  With the voyage underway and the vessel settled into a stable trajectory, Montcliff approached the seemingly rich merchant.

  “Monsieur,” Montcliff began, “now that we are underway and all is well, I wanted to formally introduce myself. I am Jean-Paul Montcliff, of Marseilles. May I interest you in some brandy on this cold and wet morning?”

  Bishkar averted his eyes from the mast on the horizon and turned his gaze upon the pale face of the captain whom he had expected would try to make conversation at some point along the journey.

  “No. No brandy, Captain. I like to have my wit about me and the cold does me no bother,” Bishkar said, his voice penetrating the chaos of tempestuous waters. Having to return the courtesy, he introduced himself, “I am called Ernak Jingghizar and I hail from Malaga. Do you know where that is?”

  Montcliff had noted that he was not from any land surrounding Paris, and now that was confirmed. He could breathe a little easier. Malaga was down in the Mediterranean and Montcliff, while not being an educated man, had traveled much of the waters of the north and the greater waters east of Britannia and knew Malaga well.

  “Why do you follow that vessel, monsieur?” He asked, unable to keep his curiosity within the confines of his chest.

  Bishkar had anticipated this moment and was well prepared.

  “The man in the lead vessel owes me a great deal. He is fleeing the continent in the hopes of cheating me of what is mine.”

  “How much does he owe you?”

  “That is between me and him, Captain. For now, all I wish to do, as I have told you, is to see where he lands and with whom he allies himself with.”

  “Then why do you not chase up to him and board him?”

  Bishkar smiled. Indeed, he thought, that would be the way of the fool. To the man beside him, Bishkar glared directly into his eyes, in the midst of wind and ocean spray. The message his eyes delivered was as cold as it was clear.

  “Because that would not be wise.”

  Montcliff could not understand but decided to follow along. The truth had been concealed from the tired captain.

  Bishkar kept his blue eyes locked on the mast on the edge of the horizon. He really only wanted Arthur to feel comfortable and let his guard down. He was certain that the further he sailed away from the continent, the more at ease his quarry would get. Two men who had proven to be able tacticians had to be vanquished. The younger would seal his position as General of the Hun army, the other would tie Rome and the illegitimate emperor to him. Bishkar was going to get both of them if it was the last thing he did.

  The vessel charged forward. The power of one hundred and sixty oarsmen who rowed in unison as the coxswain commanded every morsel of action and demanded every ounce of effort was evident in its progress. It was clear the ship was run with military precision, but none on board presently served any nation or tribe.

  As the fog c
ontinued to advance, the lookout on the crow’s nest, high above the mainmast, suddenly rang the bells.“Ship slowing down,” he yelled.

  “What is he saying?” Bishkar asked, turning to the captain.

  “I can’t hear him very well, my lord, but I think he said that the ship is slowing down” the captain replied, then turned his sights to the man high above the mainmast. “Say again, sailor!”

  “The ship has slowed. She is coming to a full stop and we are gaining on her fast.”

  The captain quickly turned to his coxswain.

  “All stop!” he shouted. “Oars stop in the water.”

  The coxswain blew his horn.

  “All Stop! Plant your oars!”

  Bringing the oars to a stop by pushing them into the water would serve to drag the vessel to a rapid halt. At the same time, the captain ordered the mainsail lowered. Within moments, the Nostre Dame came to a full stop. Moments later, it was covered in the fog.

  Turning to his customer, he breathed a sigh of relief.

  “They will not see us, my lord.”

  “But it also means we will not see them,” Bishkar noted.

  “No, monsieur. The fog will obscure one from the other.”

  All hands had been busy maneuvering the boat while all eyes had been keeping watch over the quarry that had missed the ship that was now directly on course to ram them on the port bow.

  As the two men conversed on a boat that rocked and swayed in the tide they were caught completely unaware as the naval ram of another trireme crashed into the port beam, splitting Montcliff’s vessel in half. The loud crash sent splinters and timber in all directions, plunging into deckhands and smashing into oarsmen.

  Those who were fortunate to survive the naval ram of Arthur’s vessel, the Bouvet, were met with a different fate, the tips of arrows from Vipsanius’ archers. The men had been stationed on the bow of the ramming vessel as they emerged from the fog. Each man had hunkered down and latched themselves onto ropes tied to the mainmast, to prevent them from being launched into the air when the ship rammed into the enemy. Once they had severed the ship in half, the archers rose to their feet and let their arrows fly, surgically ending any who were fortunate to not be killed by the collision.

  “That man, monsieur,” the captain of the Bouvet pointed toward the stern of the sinking vessel. Soaked and shocked, the gaunt man looked back at the captain he recognized from the ports in Le Harve.

  “Bring me that man, post haste. The vessel is about to go under,” Arthur commanded.

  Three soldiers leaped from the deck and hurried to the only survivor of the Nostre Dame. They apprehended the dumbfounded man and before he could make sense of anything, he was on board the Bouvet to be interrogated. Montcliff pleaded for his life as he willingly offered them information of the man who had chartered his services, but had now disappeared, presumed drowned in the Narrow Sea.

  As the melee settled and the deck of the Nostre Dame disappeared beneath the waves, Arthur, who had sensed the nefarious intention of the ship on his tail, stood on the bow of the Bouvet and watched as the Nostre Dame made its last voyage to the bottom of the channel.

  2

  The Fog Lifts

  By noon of the same day, the Bouvet rejoined the flotilla. The fog of morning had lifted and the seas had settled. A light breeze ran past the ships as they searched for the landmark Arthur described. By mid-afternoon, the flotilla arrived in Northern Caledonia. The inlet that had been described to Arthur lay before him and his instructions to the captain were issued.

  Until that point in the journey, the captain had not been told where they would land, in case word spread among the sailors and someone had chosen to follow them. Besides, even if Arthur had wanted to tell the man, he would not know what to describe. Somehow the description the mage had given him was enough to give him a visual that he could not translate to words.

  The ships began their landing and one by one entered the calm waters of the bay.

  “What do we do with Montcliff?” Vipsanius asked as Arthur watched his people disembark.

  “Leave him in the hold for now. The ships will not sail for Paris till tomorrow. I will decide before they leave.”

  Vipsanius nodded, understanding that the best thing to do would be to kill the man, considering all that had been extracted from his heart had spelled doom for the Romans in the new land.

  Igraine, however, was less convinced.

  “Lucius is not an intelligent man and Titus did not have the foresight nor the stamina to see such an effort through to the end,” she argued.

  They had not expected anyone from the old world to be so dogged in their pursuit. It was clear that the man who had hired the captain with explicit instructions to track them was some sort of spy. Possibly hired by Lucius, Igraine had concluded. Uther had no counterargument. Her reasoning was sound. They had made no foes in Paris, nor the lands along the route of their journey. Only one plausible reason remained. It had to be Lucius.

  “What is this pursuer’s name?” Igraine asked, her hair flat from the salty wind and her face pale from the cold that they had endured during their short voyage.

  “The captain did not remember. But he did say that he was from Spain. His accent and cloth, according to the captain, seemed to confirm his origin, my lady,” Vipsanius conveyed.

  Uther stood briskly in the afternoon breeze. The cold wind of the Narrow Sea and the short battle that vanquished the threat had infused the older Pendragon with the vigor he once knew in his youth. As a young soldier in his father’s legion and even after that, as a general, Uther had commanded authority and instilled fear in all who fell beneath his shadow. Uther had blurred with time, but the new land and the recent activity had returned the man of the past. Igraine could see it, as could Arthur.

  “We set up camp here. We have enough daylight to do what needs to be done, and enough protection from the land to ward off hostile intent.”

  “Yes, father,” Arthur said, striking his chest with his fist as Romans did when being ordered by their emperor.

  “Vipsanius, make it so,” Arthur commanded the man who had been loyal to the Pendragon crest and been at Arthur’s side since his first battle.

  “What will you do?” Vipsanius asked, noting that Arthur spoke as if he had other plans.

  “I will ride out to survey the lands beyond. The forests in the south and the plains in the north look uninhabited but it is not wise to make an assumption of that which we do not know. After all, we cannot know what it is we do not know,” Arthur said, a look of hope mixed with the burden of his heart filled his brown eyes.

  “Yes, my lord,” Vipsanius obeyed.

  “You still refer to me as such,” Arthur remarked, referring to the command he had given him to cease from referring to him as a general or as the heir to the imperial throne.

  “My lord,” Vipsanius began, “that was to keep you safe from harm on treacherous land. We are now on free land, and you are always my lord. I cannot call you anything else.”

  Arthur understood his old friend. All he had for him though was a nod, as he pulled on his reins and redirected his steed toward a southerly heading and let Boadicea fly.

  The Romans had set up camp on the hills that surrounded the deep waters of the bay. Arthur had been guided well in landing here. No one seemed to occupy the lands and no one seemed to monitor their arrival. They had total freedom where they landed and the Romans soon took advantage of it. They set up camp on the ridge that stood over the bay in the east.

  On the western slope that descended toward the south and the west more gradually than it fell to the north, the plain was covered in pastures of green for as far as the eyes could see in the south. In the west, a forest undulated with the land beneath it while the stone cliffs that fell to the north prevented the scouts from making their way in that direction.

  Scou
ts were sent in all directions to set up lookout posts while riders were dispatched to survey the hamlets and towns nearby.

  As the spring sun came to the end of its day, Arthur arrived at the northern limits of a hamlet on the hill. The smell of the salt that characterized the ridge where his men had set up camp was all but gone now. The edge of the forest in the west was now a lot closer than earlier and he was tempted to investigate it.

  “That will come with the new day. For now, I need to find the man behind the voice,” he whispered to his horse.

  Dismounting, Arthur relieved his trusted steed of her burden as he began the trek up the slight gradient to the top of the hill where the hamlet lay nestled at the edge of the forest that had risen to meet it. Arriving at the stone structure, he found that what may have once been a small settlement now stood empty, but the air around it gave no sign of desolation or contempt. It was peaceful and imbued a sense of home to a man who had not set foot in one for a long time.

  “You seek a friend,” a voice from behind said, suddenly entering his consciousness and startling his being into a full state of alert. With a swift turn and even swifter drawing of his sword from its sheath, Arthur turned to face his visitor.

  “No need for that, friend,” the man with markings on his hands and face said calmly. From the look of his green eyes and pale painted skin, a look of sheer fright descended onto Arthur’s soul.

  “Who are you?” the weary traveler whispered, his sword still firmly in his grip.

  “I am merely an emissary, sent by my master, Merlin the Mage,” he continued, disregarding the sword that still hung in the space between them.

  “Where is your master, kind sir?” Arthur responded as he considered lowering his sword, but found no compelling reason to do so.

  “My master is in the forest beyond. If you would follow me, I will lead you to him,” he said slowly as the last remaining light of the evening gradually danced under his hood. Arthur squinted to see his host, but not more than what he had already seen made its way to his senses.