CHAPTER VI.

THE FOREST OF CARDIK.

"What a war! What a war!" exclaim the warriors of Louis the Pious, leaving at every step some of their companions behind among the rocks and the marshes of Armorica. "Every hedge of the fields, every ditch in the valleys conceals a Breton of steady eye and hand. The stone of the sling, the arrow of the bow whiz everywhere through the air, nor miss their aim. The pits of the precipices, and the bottoms of the stagnant waters swallow up the bodies of our soldiers. If we penetrate into the forests, the danger redoubles. Every copse, the branches of every tree, conceal an enemy!"

Neroweg, having barely escaped with his life from the disaster of the marsh of Peulven, spends the night upon the hill with the remaining fragment of his army. At early dawn the next morning he orders the trumpets and clarions to call his men to their ranks. At the head of his warriors he again steps upon the narrow jetty of the marsh. He is determined to force his way into the forest of Cardik. Footmen and horses again trample over the heaped-up corpses in the wide trenches. No ambush now retards the passage of the Franks. By sunrise the last detachments have crossed the marsh, and all the forces still at the command of Neroweg are deployed along the skirts of the forest that is now serving as a retreat to the Gauls of Armorica, and where they have taken their next stand.

The primeval forest extends, towards the west, as far as the steep banks of a river that runs into the sea, and towards the east, up to a chain of precipitous hills. Furious at the defeat he suffered on the previous evening, the Frankish chief is hardly able to restrain his ardor. Always accompanied by the monk, he advances into the forest. The oaks, the elms, the ash trees, the birch trees, raise their gigantic trunks and interlace their spreading branches. Between these trunks, all is underwood, bramble and briar. Only one narrow and tortuous path presents itself to Neroweg's sight. He enters it. Daylight barely penetrates the walk through the dense vault of verdure, shaped overhead by the foliage of the stately trees. Thickets of holly seven or eight feet high fringe the way. Their prickly leaves render them impenetrable.

Unable to wander off either to the right or to the left, the soldiers are compelled to follow the defile of verdure. Laboring under the shock of their recent disasters, they march with mistrust through the somber forest of Cardik, speaking only in undertones, and from time to time interrogating with uneasy looks the leafy branches of the trees, or the thicket that borders the route. For a while nothing justifies the apprehensions of the Frankish cohorts. The silence of the forest is disturbed only by the rhythmic and muffled sound of their steps, and the clank of their arms. But even the silence itself nourishes the vague fears of the Franks. The defile of Glen-Clan and the marsh of Peulven also were silent! More than one-half of the rest of the army now left to Neroweg has entered the forest, when, reaching one of the turns of the winding path, the Frankish chief, who marches at the head of his horsemen accompanied by the monk, suddenly stops short. The path has vanished. Gigantic oaks and elms, a hundred feet tall and from fifteen to twenty feet in circumference, and bearing the evidence of having only freshly fallen under the axe of the woodman, lie heaped upon each other and so tangled in their fall across the route that their enormous branches and colossal trunks present an impassible barrier to the cavalry. Only foot soldiers might possibly scale the obstruction, and cut their way across with hatchets.

"Oh! What a war!" cries out Neroweg, clenching his fists. "After the defile, the marsh! After the marsh, the forest! I shall have barely one-third of my forces left by the time I join the other chiefs! Accursed Bretons, may the fires of hell consume you!"

"Yes, these heathens will burn! They shall burn until the last day of judgment!" responds the monk with deep vexation. "Courage, Neroweg! Courage! This last obstacle being overcome, we shall arrive at the moor of Kennor. There we shall join the other two army corps of Louis the Pious, and we shall all jointly penetrate into the valley of Lokfern, where we will exterminate these accursed Bretons to the last man."

"Have you seen me falter in courage? By the great St. Martin, it looks as if you were in league with the enemy, judging by the route you have guided us on! Already have you twice led us into an ambush, you miserable priest!"

"Have I not braved all the dangers at your side?" observes the priest, holding up his left arm, that is wound in a bloodstained bandage. "Was I not myself wounded last evening when we attempted to cross the marsh of Peulven? Can you question my courage or fidelity?"

"How are we to find another route? The one barred is the only one, you told me, that crosses this forest, otherwise impracticable to an army."

The monk looks around; he reflects; but no answer proceeds from his lips. A prey to discouragement and increasing terror, the soldiers begin to grumble, when suddenly three quickly succeeding cries of the night-bird pierce the air. Immediately the Breton slingers and archers, ambushed behind the breast-work of fallen trees, assail the Franks with a volley of stones and arrows. Enormous oak branches, previously prepared, detach themselves from the tops of their trunks, and come down crashing upon the heads of the soldiers, killing or mutilating them. Anew, panic seizes the Franks; a fresh carnage decimates them. Cavalrymen thrown from their horses, foot soldiers trampled under the hoofs of the frightened steeds, all blinded, their flesh torn as in their fright they precipitate themselves into the thick of the prickly holly hedges--such is this day's spectacle presented to the delighted Breton eyes by the invading army of Neroweg. What an inspiring spectacle to the Armorican Gauls! The air is filled with the moans of the dying, the imprecations of the wounded, the threats hurled at the monk, now roundly charged with treason.

The carnage and the panic are at their height when, climbing to the top of the breast-work of trees whence he can gain a full view of the distracted foe, Vortigern appears before the Franks and calls out to them defiantly:

"Now you may try to cross the forest. Our quivers are empty. We shall retreat to replenish them and shall be ready to meet you in the valley of Lokfern."

Vortigern has barely uttered these words when his eyes catch sight of the chief of the Franks, who, having descended from his horse, holds up against the stones and bolts of his assailants, his white buckler, on which three eagle's talons are seen painted. At the sight of the device of his own stock's ancestral foe, Vortigern places his last arrow upon the string of his bow.

"The descendant of Joel sends this to the descendant of the Nerowegs."

The arrow whizzes. It grazes the lower border of the Frank's buckler, and penetrates his knee just above the jointure.

Neroweg falls upon the other knee, points out the Gaul to several archers in his vicinity, and cries:

"Take aim at that bandit! Kill him!"

The Saxon arrows fly through the air; two strike, and quiver where they strike, in the upturned branches of the tree on which Vortigern has mounted; the third enters his left arm.

The descendant of Joel quickly draws out the sharp-edged iron, throws it back at the Franks with a defiant gesture, and disappears behind the twisted branches of the improvised barricade.

Three times the cry of the night bird is again heard in the forest, and the Bretons disperse along paths known only to them, again singing as they go, the ancient war-song, the sound of whose refrain is gradually lost in the distance:

"This morning we asked: 'How many are there of these Franks? How many are there of these barbarians?' This evening we say: 'How many were there of these Franks? How many were there of these barbarians?' Victory, Victory for Gaul!"