He staggered upright. He was surrounded by men fighting, both the thegns he and Worr had come to aid, and fresh Danes, who had either broken out of the larger conflict or come anew from the palisade. He saw Worr, trying to work his way towards him.
He hugged his shield tighter in to his body and turned. Two Danes were there, fighting two thegns, both of Kilton. He thought he had been hit unknowingly by the swung shield of one of the Danes, or even one of his own men. If a Dane had hit him, he had not had time enough to finish the job.
He raised his sword, his shoulder feeling as though a burning brand consumed it from within. His men saw him, and one cried out, “Kilton” even as he fought off the Dane he traded blows with. Ceric was so plainly dressed, so blood-smeared and filthy, that he did not look an heir of a great burh of Wessex. Only the sword of Godwulf, gift of Kings, betrayed that. Any set of eyes which fell on the dancing waves of patterned steel, or glimpsed the hilt and guard, saw it as such. His presence encouraged his men and emboldened his foe. He heard an answering grunt from the Dane nearest him; here was a prize indeed.
The Dane was quick to leave the thegn and come after Ceric and his sword. The man’s eyes were even fixed upon it as he neared, his brow furrowed on a helmet-less head. A hissing breath fell from Ceric’s lips, as he expelled that held in his tightened chest. His left side was unharmed, and he angled himself to the Dane to favour his right. Shield held firmly and high, he invited the blows of Danish steel upon its painted face. He braced his left shoulder against the padded leather of the shield’s curve, and left knee too, making of himself a shield-wall of one.
The Dane hacked and swung, slicing up the leathern facing, driving gashes into the alder body of it. He hit the iron boss, making his sword recoil, and Ceric’s hand within ring like the bright and deadly noise sounding from the blow. The whole time Ceric withstood this, he was gauging the strength in his sword arm. It was folded close to his body, extended just slightly for balance. Worr was fully busy where he stood; of his other men, one had fallen and the other battling a Dane swinging a skeggox. Unless other men of Wessex could run to him, he would have no aid.
Another blow, and Ceric heard the rent of wood. A cry of victory from the Dane as Ceric’s shield split, the right side of it hacked away. It hung a moment from the severed rim of iron banding at its edge, then dropped to his feet. He was left with little more than half a shield, his left hand and arm firmly in the boss, but his right side wholly open to attack. He must raise his sword if he were to live.
Riding here he had thought of pomp, of ancient armies, of the splendour of the march. Now the men whose beauty he had celebrated were dying one by one. He had killed two men, two men perhaps as united in bonds with their fellows as was he. His shield was mostly gone, his sword arm uncertain, and this Dane was near to killing him. Here was the sudden reality of death, the smell of it, its breath hot on his face. Now he felt it. No beauty or nobility remained of his earlier dedication, even the sacrifice for kin, King, and God seemed impossibly distorted and distant. All that was left was his animal desire to live.
The Dane kicked the fallen part of Ceric’s shield out of his way. Ceric dropped his eyes to his blade, stared at it. By its edge would he live or die. He lifted the weapon, the cross piece of the guard coming to his gaze like the frame on which Christ was nailed.
I am wrong, he thought. If he could not now think of Kilton or King, one thing yet remained. That was God. His vow to God mattered, still made sense. If he died, he would go to God. Either way in the contest, he would win.
He knew his golden cross lay against his skin, under his linen tunic, under that of leather, and that of linked rings. He pressed the forearm holding his shield tighter to his chest, pressing that cross to his flesh. He felt the muscles in his forearm, the force of his grip, and the pain too, in his right shoulder and back. It was all his. Give over to it, he told himself; give yourself up to it, the strength, the fury, the silence, and the tumult.
He might have one or two good blows in his sword arm; he must not waste them. Nothing would be wasted, he heard within him, as if in answer. Even should he fall he went to something larger than he.
He swung his sword up, purposefully high and to the right, making the Dane track it with his shield. His teeth were clenched in pain as he lifted his arm thus, but such was his intent that it was a pain almost outside of his body. The Dane’s eyes followed his sword’s transit, latched onto the golden hilt in Ceric’s fist. It gave Ceric the chance to leap forward with his shattered shield, wielding the pointed boss as a weapon. He was able to hit the Dane’s unguarded left shoulder with it. The man stifled his cry of pain; Ceric had punched through the ring-shirt as if he held a bodkin. The red shield dropped uselessly from the Dane’s arm.
As Ceric moved in again with his sword tip, the Dane dodged to his left, then swung a booted foot up and kicked the sword out of Ceric’s hand with a blow to his forearm. The sword fell upright between the two, its point buried for a moment in the soil, before falling. There was no chance to bend and retrieve it; all Ceric could do was draw his seax from the sheath at his belly. His right arm was almost numb with pain, but the lighter seax freed what strength he had left in it.
Deprived of his shield, the Dane moved to draw his own knife in his left hand, an action which slowed him enough for Ceric to lunge forward, nearly straight-armed, with both shield boss and seax. Neither met flesh; but what was left of his shield pushed the man’s sword up into the air, while his right arm closed down upon the Dane’s left, forcing it next to his body. They fell backwards together, grappling to the death, Ceric trying to turn his seax in his wrist enough to enter the man’s body, while holding the Dane’s own sword aloft. His helmet rolled off. Their faces were but inches apart, the smell of the other’s sweat full and pungent in their nostrils, a closeness both awe-ful and terror-making. He felt the man’s desperate strength beneath him, but felt his own even more. His arms, his whole body, shook with effort. Give yourself up to it, Ceric heard again from within.
“Not me, but you,” Ceric told him, looking into the widened eyes of a man who did not understand his words. “Not Woden. Christ.”
It was said in gritted triumph. He had freed his wrist enough from the Dane’s weight to turn it, and by rocking hard against the man’s body had wedged it into the small of his back. The man shrieked, then shuddered. Ceric withdrew his seax, gripped by a hand which no longer trembled. He pulled away so that he knelt at the dying man’s side. The Dane was gurgling wordlessly, head back, chin thrust in the air, suffering, Ceric knew. He would end it, and did, with a quick thrust of the blade to the man’s windpipe.
“Not Woden, Christ,” Ceric repeated; a form of prayer. He looked at the blood upon his blade, that seax of which the scop at home sang songs. He wiped it on the grass, slid it back slowly into its sheath. His sword was almost at his feet. He reached for it, held it upright, saw the Holy Cross in the guard piece.
His lips moved again. “For Christ, Ælfred, and Kilton,” he breathed. Then he touched his lips to that cross.
Chapter the Twenty-second: The Toll
CERIC spent a moment kneeling there, his sword hilt before his face. He lived; he was alive. The joy of finding himself thus flooded into his breast. He had not been called after all. His eyes, when he lowered his sword hilt, were filled with the tenderness of the soft and vivid grass before him, a patch springing undefiled from trample and blood.
His thoughts spiraled down, tumbling with dizzying speed from the exulting heights of communion with Christ, to these tiny growing shoots beneath him, offering their Earthly loveliness. And the image of Ashild filled his mind. Ashild whom he would soon find his way to, and soon wed. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs, smiling despite the pain he felt in doing so.
No fighting was near him, but now, as if his ears had been unstopped, the sounds of conflict washed over him. He gave his head a shake. He heard the war-cries of attacking men, oaths lobbed i
n answer, the clang of iron coming to bear against iron, and beneath it all, the wail of the wounded.
Worr was coming to him now, holding his sword in a bloodied hand, his face begrimed, one of his leggings ripped open at the knee. “You are hit?” he asked, his voice a panting breath. Worr’s eyes travelled from Ceric’s face to the body of the Dane he knelt next to.
Ceric shook his head. “Or – not badly. My back and shoulder aches.”
“Can you fight,” Worr asked now, lifting his eyes beyond Ceric, to where a mass of men still struggled. “Do not say Yes, if you cannot lift your sword.” The urgency in Worr’s voice told Ceric that every arm must count.
He pushed himself up. “I can fight,” he said. He retrieved his helmet where it had rolled, placed its heaviness back on his head.
Worr took him in more fully, saw the remains of the shield. He picked up the dead Dane’s red round. “You need a shield; leave that which you have.”
Ceric obeyed, but set it upright by the Dane. “I dropped him with it,” he told Worr. “I will come back for it. I must take it to Cadmar, proof that I listened well.” This seemed of sudden importance, that he bear such witness, as if the warrior-monk had foretold of Ceric’s survival by the use of his shield boss.
He took the shield Worr offered. “Your hand,” Ceric said, awake to the wound there. He saw that the blood from the gash above the wrist flowed freely enough to wet his friend’s palm. “Let me wrap it.”
In his belt he had a roll of linen his Aunt Edgyth had pressed upon him. He felt for it, but it was gone. He saw the pouch that carried it upon the grass, dislodged during his struggle with the Dane. He cut a length and bound the gash on Worr’s arm.
There was time for nothing more. They lifted their weapons. The golden dragon banner of Wessex was still aloft, but quiet against the brilliant blue of a clear and nearly cloudless sky. They made for it, and the two score of men fighting underneath. But they had not gone more than a few steps when a horn sounded.
It was not that of Eadward’s herald. It was higher pitched, and blew once, a horn which came from deep within the struggling men. The men beneath the battle flag seemed to separate and dissolve. Danes began running, coming not only from the numbers fighting near the flag of Wessex, but from all around the field. They were leaving, running towards the opening gates of the palisade. The Danes were fleeing.
They ran with purpose, not stopping to engage any thegns who gave chase, or tried to bar their way. Few Danes were seen even to pluck at anything upon the ground. Ceric and Worr stood watching with opened mouths. Then, mindful they would be needed, they made their way as quickly as they could to where the banner beckoned. The carnage only deepened as they neared the spot where such a short time ago they had stood in ranks fronting Eadward and his picked men.
A feeling like ice in his veins gripped Ceric. What if the bodyguard had failed, and Eadward was dead? Yet if that were true, why did the Danes retreat? And there was the golden dragon, hanging in the cool morning air, not captured, not torn down.
Now they were close enough to see men of Kilton, thegns of other burhs too, standing and looking in to where Ceric hoped Eadward stood. Only when they entered the inner ring of men did they see him, sword in his hand.
He had himself fought; it was clear from the dampness of his brow and the hacks to his shield he had traded blows. The fighting was hot indeed around him for this to happen, for his bodyguard to fail in this way. Yet the Prince looked unhurt, though his anger was clear. Ceric watched the Prince hand his shield to one of his men, and then slide the naked blade of his bright sword back into its baldric.
Ten or more dead men lay about him, most of them Danes, attesting to the heat of the battle about the Prince. One of his bodyguard was moving amongst those fallen Danes, ramming a spear point into the breast of any who still lived. Ceric saw one raise his hand in supplication, a plea which was denied. These Danes had tried to kill the Prince of Wessex.
Ceric shifted his gaze to the dragon banner. Its staff had been thrust into the ground. The youth he had seen this morning holding it lay dead upon the grass. His eyes went back to the Prince, his flag-bearer slain, his bodyguard breached. The Danes had fled, but this was hardly a great victory.
“Just as we are winning out, they run,” Eadward said. His face showed his dismay, one bordering on disgust.
“Those who can still ride, follow me,” he told them. “Those unfit, stay and help gather the injured and the dead. I leave half my remaining men here to keep the Danes within. The rest of you fit enough to fight will join me as we track down those who escaped as we arrived.”
As they stood listening a rider approached, on a horse well lathered. “My Lord,” he called, as he flung himself down from his saddle. “Those Danes who left the field leave now, from their rear gate.”
“Are all our men dead?”
“No my Lord, but they rode after those who early escaped.”
“Leaving none to hold the gate,” Eadward finished. If he had been angered before, he was near rage now.
“Enough,” he said aloud, but as if to himself. He looked to the man who rode as messenger. “The tracks of many horses will be easy to follow in this soft soil.
“Bring the horses forward, waggons too,” he ordered now. “We will gather the wounded.”
He scanned the faces of the warriors who stood about him. “Strip the Danes, taking what you will. Collect the dead,” he went on. His chin turned to where the youth who had held his battle flag had fallen. His voice dropped. “Put Ecgulf in my own waggon.”
Eadward’s herald pulled his brass horn from his shoulder, turned to face the gently rising ground upon which the horses and supply men waited. He blew the summoning calls, a sound as mournful as if it had been for retreat.
The men began to look about them, seeing who lived and stood, and to find their lords or leaders. Other thegns, able to walk but with injuries, were still coming haltingly towards them from the field, heading for the dragon banner. Ceric and those gathered before him must walk now to meet them, and all return to the places they had fought, find the men they had killed, take what battle-gain could be had.
As the thegns of Kilton presented themselves before Ceric and Worr, he tried to number them. Fifty-one fighting men had ridden from Kilton, and all had taken part in the action. He saw nine and twenty now before him.
Others must live, he thought, looking out at those men who still walked slowly towards the banner. He looked to Worr, who he knew had been counting as well. Adding themselves it made thirty-one men standing. There must be more.
“Wistan. Where is Wistan,” Ceric asked. “He was on my left.”
“I saw him, after the shield-wall broke,” Worr said, lending some hope.
They all began heading for those places where they had downed men. Wounded thegns were still rising from the ground, or trying to. The men were so scattered that the warriors of one burh now lay near that of another, who had been many paces away when the boar-snout had rushed at them. The thegns of Kilton dropped off one by one, going to aid their injured brethren, searching for the Danes they had felled.
Worr and Ceric walked past Ceric’s shattered shield, resting upright against the body of the last Dane he had killed. They continued on; they had always been near to each other. They scanned the bodies as they passed them, some of which they need roll over so their faces could be seen. They found eight dead thegns of Kilton this way, and several more of other burhs.
“Wistan,” said Worr, turning over a ninth. The ground was soaked with his blood, the broad rent on his right arm showing where the head of a war-axe had sliced through the ring-tunic as if it had been little more than loops of women’s thread-work.
Ceric looked down on the lifeless form. Wistan had a merry, rusty-haired wife who was plump, and three nearly grown daughters, and a young son. It would be Ceric who must tell her how her husband fell.
“His sword,” Worr was sayin
g, eyes travelling all around the dead thegn. “Where is his sword.” The voice, always so steady, held now a plaintive edge.
Wistan was the most seasoned of thegns, had won treasure in the service of both Godwulf and Godwin. He was liked by all, but was Worr’s friend. When Worr had fought to defend Kilton as a young man, it was Wistan who stood by him, urging him on as he put to use all the hours of sparring they had done together. Worr knew Wistan’s fine sword almost as well as his own; it was one Godwulf had presented to Wistan as reward when he was no older than Ceric was now.
They kicked over the bodies of dead Danes and pulled over those of the thegns of Wessex, searching. Wistan’s sword was not there. It had been carried off by the retreating Danes. They looked at each other, not needing to speak. Wistan’s body had not been defiled through having been stripped by the enemy, but this was the sole consolation. There was no sword to pass into his widow’s keeping. They would take his seax and any slight valuables, and bring them to her; it was all they could do.
Waggons were coming now, some for the dead, others for the wounded. They walked back to where the Danes had first hit them. Ceric looked up above a distant line of trees, blinking at the brilliance of the Sun, still climbing in the sky. The whole battle had been brief. He knew in the past pitched battles had gone on for hours, short truces called while men retrieved weapons, found whole shields, took refreshment, had their wounds bound up. But this had been over in the space of an hour; the Sun was not yet overhead. It was hard to take in.
He found the first man, he who had been in the fifth rank of the boar snout. His blow had not severed the wrist entirely, and the opened hand hanging by a flap of skin was the more grisly for it. The hand and its arm lay folded up near the Dane’s shoulder, and Ceric moved to the man’s other side. He could see without reaching that the Dane wore no neck chain. No bracelet encircled the man’s left wrist, which was still inside his shield. He unbuckled the weapons belts and lay them in his upturned shield, then dragged it by its shoulder strap to where Worr knelt, working over those he had downed. They worked back to back, Ceric stripping the body of the younger man, Worr of the older. He heard Worr’s sharp intake of breath, and turned to see him pull a thick cuff of silver from the man’s left wrist, concealed behind his shield. It was a worthy prize.
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