Page 5 - SagaOfBarak1

Chapter One

It was late summer moving into early autumn, but even now the leaves upon
the trees of the forest were changing colour from a deep lush green to a rich
golden brown. Aye, and it was also the first mild frost since the ending of the
last Spring; this early chill giving the promise of a long and hard cold winter
ahead.
Smoke dwindled slowly skyward on that windless morning from a cluster of
turf-roofed hovels in the early morning half-light at the start of a crisp day. Mangy
half-starved cur dogs yapped and cringed at the approach of a stranger
meandering slowly down through the early morning mists.
This lone rider had emerged unheralded and unannounced from a dense forest
of ancient oak, ash, birch and chestnut trees. It was a forest that flanked the
southern side of a great wall, and this was a wall that was both high and broad.
So broad was it, why two chariots that were even hard driven could pass by each
other with plenty of room still to spare. Aye, indeed, this stout lofty wall, was
considered by most to be quite a marvel of its time. And this high broad wall,
well it was also a long and lengthy thing. Indeed here was a high, mighty
construction that stretched from coast to coast across the island’s wolf infested
wilderness. Here the Romans last northern fortification ran all the way from the
western shore by the Irish Sea, across the cold rugged land to the bustling and
prosperous harbours of the east coast. This great wall spanned the most northerly
and perhaps also the most inhospitable part of Britain.
Beyond the great border wall there was nothing, well nothing anyway but
Pictdom and savage primitive barbarism. Not only was the now deceased
Emperor Hadrian’s great wall the most northern part of Britain it was also, as
already said, the most northerly outpost in the whole of the still vast but now
dwindling Roman Empire.
The ’Wall in the Sky’ the men of the legions called it. While there were others
in the ranks who would unflatteringly say it was simply the end of the world,
well at least the end of the civilised world. Some of them, well these men just
called this place the end of the very road itself. No, no, oh no, the great wall was
perhaps not in the least way a favourite and sought after posting for those who
hailed from the warmer climes.
But still and no matter, the lone rider wound his way slowly on down past the
peasant hovels of the peat diggers and the pig keepers. This grim faced, somewhat
unforgiving looking man sat astride a huge mountain of a horse.

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