Early the next morning, Elgar met with Deerrunner and a dozen elves who agreed to lead the army through the moors. “I looked at the map last night,” Elgar said. “I figure the Celts are about a day ahead of us.”

“About that,” Deerrunner said.

“Secret elf paths are fine,” Elgar continued. Such paths could take people from here to there in less time than humanly possible. “But I want to catch up, not get ahead of them. If we catch them in the downs on the other side of the moors, well before the Tamar River, that would be fine. Men in this world often have to fight, but better they have solid ground under their feet.”

Deerrunner said, “I understand, catch but not surpass.” and he added, “Pinewood and his people will be keeping an eye on the Celtic army. They can slow them down a bit if necessary, like finding an unexpected marshy area where they have to backtrack and go around. He will keep us apprised of their progress so they will not get too far ahead of us and we will not get ahead of them.”

“Good. Don’t forget we have wagons full of supplies so we need a solid route level enough to bring them through,” Elgar said. Deerrunner understood, so Elgar went to saddle his horse while Eanwulf, Osric, and Athelwulf showed up to cross-examine the elves one more time. Elgar was not worried. Eanwulf already met Deerrunner and would vouch that he was one of the three that came to tell them about the Celts and Danes in the first place. That spoke much in Deerrunner’s favor. Deerrunner would reassure them for the rest of it and introduce his “cousins” who were all disguised to look like grubby men who lived in the wild and who would not say much more than yes sir and no sir.

It took only two days to cross Dartmoor. They never had to backtrack, and there always seemed a safe way for the wagons and horses. They had to work some to get up and down the granite hills, but that was expected. It would have been suspicious if the elf guides made it too easy.

In the early morning, the West Saxons arrived in the Tamar River valley. They came out from Dartmoor at the Tavy River where it was wide and shallow and easy to cross. King Mordaf and the Celts stopped there for the night and were still there for some reason. In fact, Lodbrok the Dane caught up with the king and they were in a heated argument about the man being paid for nothing.

Lodbrok easily overran Plymouth and Saltash in a day, left half of his men there and traveled upriver with four or five hundred men searching for the elusive abbey where he hoped to find gold and silver and precious relics of the saints that the people might pay to safeguard. He got to the hamlet of Tavistoke and found Mordaf instead of a payday. Lodbrok just agreed to abandon his quest for the non-existent abbey and return to Saltash. He  agreed to leave Cornwall alone but he did not tell the king that he planned to go back down the river to ravage Saltash and Plymouth for everything he could get before he left. All of that became moot when the West Saxons arrived.

The army of Dumnonia hastily formed ranks. Mordaf had some good officers even if all he could do was complain. “How can they be here? How can they possibly be here?”

Lodbrok hurried back to his men who were camped well below the hamlet, out of sight, and closer to the Tamar River. He considered staying out of it, but then he considered if he helped the Celts in the right way, he might get the two armies to ruin each other. That would make the coasts of Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, and Dorset, and possibly even Hampshire accessible to raiding, and the kings might not have the manpower to stop him.

King Ecgbert and his son Athelwulf got the ealdormen to set their men in battle order. Eanwulf stayed close to his father and made Osric of Dorset, his brother-in-law fight beside him. Wulfheard of Hampshire took the other end of the line where he readied his men and the men from Berkshire and Wiltshire. It was twenty-three hundred from Wessex against eighteen hundred from mostly Cornwall. The outcome was not in doubt, especially since King Ecgbert had an additional three hundred men in his so-called cavalry.

Lodbrok the Dane waited for the two armies to meet in the middle before he hoped to hit the Saxons on their flank and totally disrupt their line. He thought his men were hidden well enough to be a complete surprise. He did not fool the little ones.

The Danes stood up to charge and immediately they began to fall to elf and fairy arrows. The Danes stopped before they started and tried to form a shield wall against the deadly projectiles. Elgar’s eyes were drawn to the area. He grabbed a spear, shouted, and began to ride in that direction with his friends and a few of the guards that rode with him.

Eanwulf saw and yelled, “Where are you going?” Then he, Osric, and Athelwulf all saw the Danes, and in no time, the big half of Ecgbert’s cavalry were headed in the same direction.  Elgar was concerned that some of his little ones might be hurt or even killed. Eanwulf, Osric, and Athelwulf knew what four hundred plus men crashing into the side of an army could do. They might collapse the whole line.

When the Danes got the shield wall up against the archers, the gnomes and dwarfs popped out of the grass both directly in front and behind the Danes. They were much better at hiding in the grass than the Danes could ever hope to be, and the little ones had their bows, long knives, and axes ready and sharpened. The shield wall quickly fell apart and the Danes began to run back toward the river. By the time the cavalry arrived, that battle was already over. Elgar knew the dwarfs and some others would chase the Danes all the way to the water. They would catch some, and pity on the ones they caught. But meanwhile, Eanwulf and then Athelwulf had the same idea.

“Circle around to hit the Celts in the rear,” they shouted, and the men followed them, though they did not have to hit the rear very hard. Mordaf was already beginning the surrender. What most of the cavalry ended up doing was chasing those Celts who imagined they could race to the Tamar River and swim to safety on the banks of the Cornwall side. A few succeeded, but most were caught or killed before they reached the water.

King Ecgbert brought King Mordaf to a table he had set up in the field and King Mordaf explained. “These are the Hingston Downs, though the village of that name is some distance from here.”

“Lovely land,” King Ecgbert said. “You can keep it, and Dartmoor with the big mosquitoes.” He had little patience in his old age. He called for a map that showed the western end of Somerset, Devon without too many details, and almost nothing of Cornwall. “Here is the new border,” he said and started at Pilton, and making sure the city was on his side of the line, he drew a line down the Taw river, cut across the land to the Exe, again making sure that he got both Crediton and Exeter, and ended the line at the Exe River delta. “I get the north and east of Devon for my trouble. You can keep the west and south.”

“And the big mosquitoes,” King Mordaf mumbled.

“By all means. keep as many of them as you want.” King Ecgbert smiled and King Mordaf recognized that he had no choice. King Ecgbert softened a little. “I was reminded just recently that there is no reason why two Christian kings should not sit down and peacefully work out their differences. So, let’s talk about compensation.”

King Mordaf did find some backbone and raised some objections when the amount and frequency of the payments came up, but they eventually worked it out when King Ecgbert reminded the man that he ought to pay at least as much as he paid those heathen men to fight for him. “Unbecoming of a Christian king,” King Ecgbert concluded.

When they got back to Exeter, the king found that Godric had things well in hand. the king congratulated the man and right then made him Ealdorman of Devon, handed hm the map, and went home because he was tired. Elgar figured Godric would not live long, but neither would the king, or his own father for that matter. They were of the generation that was dying out. Oslac of Dorset was already on his deathbed. Eanwulf, Osric, probably Ceorle, and King Athelwulf would soon be taking over. That reminded Elgar of something, and he asked Deerrunner.

“So, where is your son, Marsham?”

“He is over in Northumbria tracking the Flesh Eater ship. The Flesh Eaters have been watching the humans fight each other. They may have been involved in triggering the civil wars in Francia. They also sent a shuttle across the sea to Danish lands. They are most certainly planning something.”

“Thanks,” Elgar said with all the sarcasm he could muster. “I had forgotten about them.” Deerrunner let out the kind of elf grin that would cause humans to be frightened and wonder what the elf might be thinking. It just made Elgar frown and change his thoughts. He would much rather think about Osfirth’s sister, Alfpryd.

“Elgar,” Eanwulf came around the corner. “I should have guessed you would be here. Where is Gifu Two and her puppies?”

Elgar shrugged. “Out chasing rabbits?” He guessed as his eyes got suddenly captured by another sight. Two old men dressed in hunter green and one young man dressed in light armor, like a soldier or thegn might wear, walked lazily across the field toward the house. Elgar thought he recognized them, but he was not sure, never having seen the older ones with gray hair, and maybe never having seen the younger one at all. But he had a good guess. He thought to ask Eanwulf a different question. “How are Ceorle and Odda? Aren’t they living over by Carhampton, since the Danes tried us there, I mean. I thought Father put them there to watch the coast.”

“Fine,” Eanwulf said. Elgar looked at his brother while Eanwulf focused on the men in the distance, like he was also wondering who they were.

“So, why are they here?”

Eanwulf shook his head, like he did not know the men in the distance and turned for the moment to his younger brother. “How did you know they are here?”

“I saw them in town,” Elgar admitted as he took a moment to wipe the dirt from his hands. “They started in on the tease the baby brother routine. I gave them the slip.” In truth, he ran into the stables to retrieve his horse, but they followed him in. He had no choice but to trade places through time with Margueritte. He was thinking about Festuscato when Festuscato ran into the stables to escape the Visigoth prison. He remembered Margueritte came into his place and dressed as a washerwoman, a Roman-Celtic servant in the house. When Elgar went away, Margueritte came, and she came dressed as that servant in her best washerwoman outfit, just as he remembered her.

She was too young and pretty for Ceorle and Odda not to notice her. They asked her a question, and she responded in her Welsh-rooted language from Brittany as they spoke it roughly a hundred and forty years ago. It was not that she could not understand the question or answer it in their own language, which was Elgar’s native tongue, but she figured her response in the Gaelic tongue completed the disguise.

“Not that they would recognize me as a woman,” Elgar scoffed in her thoughts. “You don’t even look like me.”

The men smiled for Margueritte and she returned their smile, an automatic response, but then they left saying it was not worth rooting around in the hay to find the boy. The urge to tease Elgar had left them.

When they left, Margueritte sat down and asked, “Are you okay?”

She traded places back with Elgar and he answered, “I’m not sure.” This was the first time he ever traded places with a past life, or any life. This was also when he first really understood something about Avalon and Alice, and specifically how to call things from Avalon, like fairy weave washerwoman outfits, and that included calling the armor and weapons of the Kairos as needed. He looked up and saw a gnome working in the stables, making up for the poor work of the lazy stableboy. The gnome bowed.

“My Lord Kairos. It is most good to know you.”

Elgar grimaced and waved off the gnome with the words, “Don’t tell anyone,” but he knew it was too late. Every gnome would hear about it in almost no time, and soon every little one in Wessex would know. Sometimes he had to do things that were better done incognito. The little ones did not need to automatically know which human might be their god or goddess. It was better that way for as long as it lasted. They would mind themselves around the humans for fear that they might play a trick on exactly the wrong human.

“But we have never been able to keep that knowledge from the little ones for long.” Elgar heard from the Storyteller for the first time just that afternoon.

Elgar acknowledged he was probably right. He mounted his horse and rode home, thinking, what did he know about elves, dwarfs, and sprites of every shape and size. He would not think much of himself as a god, but then he figured a fallible, stumbling dolt who got killed once in a while was probably the only kind of god the little ones would accept, and put up with. He began to search through the lifetimes of the Kairos that he knew, not for information, but just to get to know them, to know himself. He stabled his horse when he got home, picked up a handful of pebbles and went to sit at the side of the barn where they could not see him from the house. He needed to think.

So now Eanwulf found him, and Eanwulf grinned while all these thoughts raced through Elgar’s mind. Ceorle was a couple of years older than Eanwulf, being around thirty-four. Odda was a couple of years younger, maybe not quite thirty. They were both part of Eanwulf’s gang, as Elgar thought of them. They were also married and had young children, like his brother. Eanwulf had two girls ages seven and three and a one-year-old boy. He had another boy between the seven and three-year-old, but that boy only lived two months.

“But what are Ceorle and Odda doing here?” Elgar could not contain his curiosity.

Eanwulf nodded like he did not mind answering that question. “They are concerned about the people moving into Devon. The pace has picked up since Carhampton got attacked. Devon is relatively good farmland. Somerset, especially around Exmoor, is full of fens, marshes, and floods. Even the dry land, the islands, and hills, while they may be fertile soil, they are full of rocks and hard to plow. So far, it has been mostly peaceful migrations into Devon. The West Welsh have made room all the way to the Taw River and down to Crediton, which I could show you on the map. But with the pace of families moving to Devon increasing, Ceorle and Odda are afraid hostilities may break out. They are going to need some guidance as to how to handle it. Personally, I think hostilities are inevitable.”

“And you would be right, young prince.” One old man spoke to Eanwulf. The two old men and the young soldier arrived without Eanwulf noticing. “There will be hostilities.”

The other old man spoke. “What your father is likely right now explaining to the two young lords from Carhampton is families have been moving into southeast Devon as well and filling the whole eastern portion right up to the River Exe and the city of Exeter. Most of them have not come from Somerset, but from Dorset, Hampshire, Wiltshire, and as far away as Berkshire. I believe some in Wiltshire and Berkshire have become tired of living on the Mercian border where the armies come and fight.”

The first old man spoke again. “That is what we have come to warn you about. The king in Cornwall has decided that now is the time to take back the ancient lands of Dumnonia. He is raising an army to push the Saxons out of Devon and all the way back to the Parrett River if he can.”

“King Ecgbert is old now and not likely to fight like a young man, and your father is not much younger,” the second one said.

“On his own, Mordaf of Cornwall would not have a great chance for success, but he has made an alliance with the Danes such as you faced at Carhampton. Lodbrok the Dane has thirty-five ships and fourteen hundred men. A thousand will land at the mouth of the Exe River below Exeter. The rest will sail to Pilton at the estuary of the Taw. Those men will nearly double the strength of the Celts.”

“Why would they divide their men?” Elgar asked, and Eanwulf looked at his little brother like Elgar asked a good question for once in his life.

The first old man continued. “The Danes and Dumnonians in the north will gather at Countisbury and attack the coast to the Parrett, beginning at Carhampton. They hope to sweep the coast clean before they push down into Somerset. King Mordaf of Cornwall and Lodbrok the Dane will meet in Exeter and follow the path of the old Roman road that was laid between Exeter and Caerleon. They also plan to stop at the Parrett ford where they hope to negotiate a treaty and set the Parrett as a boundary between Celtic and Saxon lands.”

“How do you know this is so?” Eanwulf asked the obvious question.

“Our people have fought for the British since the days of Gerraint in the time of Arthur, the Pendragon. But now that you Saxons have come to the faith and support the church, we have stayed out of the fighting. The Saxons and the Celts you call the West Welsh are now part of the same family, even if you don’t see yourselves that way. But the Danes are something different. They are heathen men who need to be driven back to their own place and made to know that they are not welcome here.”

“We know what the court of Dumnonia and Cornwall have planned. Trust us,” the second old man said, and Elgar thought he better introduce the men to his brother before they went any further.

“Deerrunner,” he said of the first old man and pointed to the young soldier. “His son, Marsham. Their people live in the wilds and marshes of Somerset, Dorset, and Devon. We have met before.” He turned to the other old man. “And Pinewood and his people are found in the woods as far away as Dartmoor and Selwood. They keep mostly to themselves. Only great trouble brings them from their place.”

“You have met?” Eanwulf asked, and Elgar nodded as Eanwulf, still not entirely trusting these men, asked for clarification. “So, tell me this. Why are you telling us this? Why would Mordaf come out of his place at this time, besides the pact with the Danes?”

“It is as we told you. Mordaf has even used the words now or never.” Deerrunner turned to Elgar as he spoke. “Your father is old, is he not?”

Elgar nodded again and said, “He yells a lot.”

“King Ecgbert is in his last days, and the ealdorman of Dorset has taken to his bed.” Deerrunner turned to Eanwulf. “Mordaf does not dare wait until young Athelwulf, Osric, and yourself bring in young blood and revitalize Wessex.”

“Besides,” Pinewood added. “We do not want the heathen Danes in our land any more than you. We will help you fight the Danes.”

Eanwulf finally nodded like his brother. He rubbed his beard and decided. “You need to come up to the house and tell father all that you have told me.”

They did that very thing, and in the morning, riders went out from Somerton to Dorset, to Wiltshire, and to the king in Hampshire at Winchester.