The Road to Stirling
 

©2005-08 - N. Gemini Sasson/Gemini Sasson-Brickson
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(Below is an excerpt from THE ROAD TO STIRLING, the second story in the Robert the Bruce Trilogy.  King Edward II of England, the son of Longshanks, has marched on Scotland to relieve the formerly besieged Stirling Castle by the appointed date - only to find that Robert the Bruce's Scottish forces have more than risen to the challenge.)

The Road to Stirling

Prologue

Edward II – Bannockburn, 1314

Gilbert. Gone, gone. But how… in the name of all that is worldly, can that be?  What unspeakable acts have those heartless heathens committed on him?  He rode away on my command.  Out of brash loyalty.  And did not come back.  Hereford, who saw the whole thing, said that the Bruce butchered him in a single blow.  Hereford lies.  He saw wrongly.  Gilbert fought valiantly – to the last tooth and nail.  My dear companion, Gilbert, will return.  He will.  He was my playfellow as an infant.  Closer to me than my own brothers.  Never my judge.  Always at my side when I called.  Often there when I did not.  Gilbert with his wry quips and his lust for drink and merriment.  Ah, Gilbert, honest, loyal, true…

And what do I witness now?  My army – dropping to the earth like swatted flies.  The horror unfolds before me as if I am being retold an ancient tale of mayhem and massacre.  Was this how it fell out for poor Harold at Senlac Hill when William of Normandy’s forces overran him?  Centuries from now, will they uncover the massed bones of my soldiers buried in this foreign earth?  Or perhaps a shattered skull revealed among the stones and sand of one of these shifting stream banks after a cataclysmic storm?

The crash of weapons roars like a constant thunder.  I have deafened to the screams.  Dulled to the stink of shit and piss.  Gone blind to the sheen of blood and butchery.

Valence grabs at my reins.  “We must leave.  Now.  To Stirling.  Sire?  Sire?  Do you hear?”

I blink at him.  Hot tears scorch my eyes.  “My sire always said that I failed at everything.  That is why he fought so hard to keep from dying.  So I could not have what was his.  We stay.  See this to the end.  I must prove him wrong!”

“It’s already the end.  We haven’t time for futile acts of self-pity, my lord,” Valence says in harsh, cutting honesty.  “And to sacrifice your person would be giving your enemies more than they deserve.  The day is lost, but Stirling still belongs to the English.  You have a kingdom yet.  Stay here a moment too long and you will have given them that, too.”

I look back towards where the Bannock Burn carves at the earth.  Last night while the planks and beams from the village were being scavenged and dragged over the boggy ground to be laid across the burn as bridgework, we found that its banks were steep, its waters swifter and deeper than one might have guessed merely by its width.  Now those banks are slickened by an oozing of mud and blood and crowded with a squirming mass of bodies, grappling over one another, heedless of mercy, desperate yet to live even in their abysmal agony.

A chill washes over my face.  I feel the sweat beading on my upper lip, stiffen to the fever in my heart, see the white, blazing orb in the sky and yet I am wet-cold to the bone.