by Hume, M. K.
Arthur’s face split into a pale grin. He was covered with splashes of dried gore, and now wiped more from his eyes. Noticing that the wound he had suffered along his forearm was still weeping, he bound it with a length of white cloth that he had secreted inside his shirt. But otherwise he left the gore in place where it could serve to frighten his enemies before they had struck a blow.
‘Rest now, and eat while you can! The archers have butts of fresh water in the wagon and you have beer in your supplies. Remember the enemy will return as soon as they’ve recovered enough to mount another attack.’
Once more, every word was passed back to all the men, now fewer than four hundred, who were either eating, moving corpses or sitting quietly as they sharpened and repaired their weapons. Completely surrounded as they were, there was no possibility of evacuating Arthur’s wounded, so those men who were still able to fight made their way into the inner rings of the shield wall. The sorely wounded lay suffering and awaited death. They knew full well that wounded warriors rarely survived an engagement.
Meanwhile, some of the archers were prowling outside the perimeter of the fighting square, recovering whatever usable arrows could be salvaged from Geat bodies.
Small fires had sprung into life on the plain, so the Geats were resting, something that made Arthur shake his head with amazement. He knew that his force was in serious trouble. Only a madman would call off his troops to rest and eat when a small push now could smash the Dene force once and for all.
‘If Heardred is so timid that he lets his men fight without him, then he’s capable of only pursuing an attack if he believes he can win. Let’s hope his jarls convince him that a force of four hundred men would not be a threat to him.’
Snorri, aware that all their men were beginning to feel thirsty, suggested that he and Arthur should leave their position in the front line to carry water butts to those men whose lips were already beginning to crack as a result of the strengthening breeze and the warming sun.
After this brief hiatus, Arthur realised he had a duty to offer comfort to the dying. He instructed Snorri to summon him if Heardred made a move.
Such a task is never easy; men who know that death is imminent and who are racked with agony are tortured by the prospect that their family could descend into poverty and starvation without a breadwinner to support them. Arthur allayed these fears easily, for he assured the wounded that their families would receive their portion when the spoils of Gotland were distributed among his warriors.
Other men, especially those youths whose chins bore only the thin fluff of early manhood, often pined for a sweetheart or called for their mothers. Arthur had read in Myrddion Merlinus’s scrolls that the healer had sometimes taken on the role of such loved ones so that men in delirium could die in a state of peace. As he tried to do this Arthur was ashamed to feel tears slide down his cheeks, but nothing could deter him from his self-appointed task. Dene warriors were dying for him: he would honour them in turn, as best he could.
Warriors who saw their commander moving through the densely packed men to resume his place in the northern wall noted his wet cheeks and looked away. They were touched that a master, a captain of a longboat and a warrior of renown, would bother to speak to dying men. Such behaviour was unnatural to the northerners because leaders needed to appear invulnerable and impervious to criticism.
Back on the line, Arthur settled back into the demands of the shield wall as if it was all he had ever known. The lookout atop the wagon had sent word that the Geats were massing on all four sides. Perhaps four hours of daylight remained, but Arthur realised his entire command would be spent or near to death by the time three hours had elapsed.
Stormbringer must come soon. Tall as he was, Arthur could only just see over the piled bodies stacked to the north and the east where the Dene force had absorbed the bulk of the Geat attack. Further out, small clusters of corpses disturbed the long flat plain into the far distance where the flush of the forest formed a crescent. These warriors had been on the fringe of the Geat attack and had obviously been killed by Dene arrows. If he were Stormbringer, he would have travelled south-west down the curve of the crescent, although the forest would have slowed the larger force down to a crawl, especially if they wanted to avoid discovery. Even now, Stormbringer might be only one mile away. Arthur’s heart leaped. Surely they could survive for another hour!
Yes, Stormbringer must arrive in short order. Arthur knew better than to voice his desperate thoughts aloud, so he deliberately cracked a casual joke with Snorri for the sole purpose of calming any nervous warriors for whom the waiting had become a trial.
Stormbringer won’t fail me, Arthur reflected. Not unless he had already been discovered and ambushed.
Then, even before the word was passed on to him that the enemy were resuming their attack, he had roused the line and a distinctly smaller row of shields clicked smoothly into place.
The real test was now upon them, for the Geats were aware that the Dene invaders must be tired and their defences thinly stretched. The jarls had obviously estimated the size of the force they faced, so Heardred must have been convinced that he couldn’t lose this battle. Although they outnumbered the Dene by at least two to one, the Geats were also tired and dispirited. Heardred had driven them hard, so they had run fifty miles before fighting a pitched battle only hours after their arrival. Their king had ordered his tent to be erected at a makeshift Geat encampment where he could observe the battle from a safe position that was beyond arrow-shot of the perimeter and well removed from the Dene man-traps. On horseback, and with his sycophants around him, Heardred sent orders to his jarls, often contradictory and always unreasonable, while watching the shield wall repel his best warriors, again and again.
The rank and file warriors, many of whom were part-time farmers from Vaster Gotland, resented the screamed orders and the careless insults issuing from their king when the commanders passed down the order to retreat just before noon. A slow-burning feeling of resentment was souring Geat bellies, while many of the men wished fervently that Heardred might receive a barb from a stray arrow or vanish in a puff of smoke before all his warriors dashed themselves to death against the iron wall of shields that confronted them.
Shortly thereafter, the battle recommenced with no side having the advantage, except for a slow attrition that robbed Arthur of his warriors as the men in the front line were replaced, again and again. The mounds of corpses grew higher, and the shield wall contracted.
Then, just as Arthur was beginning to taste defeat, he suddenly heard wild Dene yells over the other noises of the battlefield and felt the vibration of galloping hooves on the hard-packed sod.
Stormbringer had finally arrived.
The Sae Dene’s force poured onto the battlefield at a gallop, having covered several miles in an arrowhead formation, led by Stormbringer’s cavalry who had swept far to the north of Arthur’s position so they could attack from the west in a brutal pincer movement. Heardred had finally gained his first sight of the army as it advanced towards him. Belatedly, he attempted to organise a retreat, but battles have lives of their own. Fully committed, the front ranks of his troops couldn’t disengage from the attack that had been mounted on Arthur’s shield wall and, without the direct guidance of the king and his counsellors, the rear troops were left in a state of confusion. The lack of a leader at the head of his troops was to cost Heardred dearly.
The warriors in the Geat rear turned to face the new foe and tried to prepare themselves for a clash against an unknown number of enemy warriors; Stormbringer’s relief force had moved so quickly and so compact were its ranks that the jarls in Heardred’s command had no idea of its actual size. Confused and outclassed, and with their communications in ruins, the Geats were defeated before Stormbringer had even blooded his sword.
In the blinking of an eye, the battle was won.
After a day
of enforced discipline which the Dene warriors in the shield wall had borne with patient fortitude, they were eager to advance now and engage their enemies like men. Arthur loosed his warriors like dogs from the leash and they leaped free of the wall and the hated Roman shields. In the vanguard, Arthur hacked and slashed, forcing his way through more and more victims who died on his knife or his spear.
At last, the shield that had served him so well throughout the day was abandoned to fall into the bloody mud.
Arthur had but one goal now.
Throughout that long and vicious day, he had yearned for some sight or sound of Heardred, but the Geat king had remained at the rear of his command. Now Arthur caught a fleeting glimpse of a regally painted tent far beyond the man-traps, where it had been erected out of harm’s way. Arthur fought his way towards it with Snorri hard at his heels.
How Arthur could force his weary limbs to put on a burst of unnatural speed seemed miraculous to his helmsman and the other three crew members who had followed him. Yet Arthur outstripped them easily, as he fixed his stony eyes on the cause of so much pain up and down the western coast of Skandia. Heardred had even lacked the balls to put his own neck on the line during the attack.
He’ll be gone on horseback if I don’t hurry, Arthur thought. But, God damn his black soul, he’ll not survive to kill children and old men again, if I can get to him first.
Then, although his lungs were on fire, Arthur laughed with a rusty, cavernous sound. I’ll be lucky if I can raise an arm to strike anyone down. So will Snorri and the others, for we’re all exhausted!
But Arthur still lusted after the life of one last person on this battlefield of death or, at the very least, an opportunity to chain Heardred to an oar and tow him through the waters until he drowned behind Sea Wife.
Then, just as Arthur’s eyes were filled with red and black explosions of strain, and each breath rasped, the party came to the king’s tent and the few warriors who had remained to protect their lord and master. The sycophants had fled on horseback at the first opportunity, but they had loosed the spare horses to prevent pursuit, leaving Heardred behind, to suffer whatever fate the Dene forces determined.
‘Catch your breath first, Arthur,’ Snorri panted. ‘We’ll look after Heardred’s dogs. You can find the king and teach him what it’s like to feel extremes of terror.’
Sucking air into his burning lungs, Arthur ignored the entrance flap and slipped around to the rear of the structure. With the Dragon Knife he split the heavy hide as if it was delicate silk. As he shouldered his way into the darkened interior, he noticed that an oil lamp provided the only illumination, placed there by the king so that any interloper entering the tent by the entrance flap would have the light shining directly into his eyes. By contrast, Arthur could see everything from his position in the rear of the tent. It was almost as if time had been stilled by Fortuna, as she decided Heardred’s fate and stopped her wheel with one lead-white hand.
A middle-aged man dressed in sumptuous cloth was seated on a cushioned chair behind the light. He half-turned towards Arthur with his mouth gaping open to show ruined and browned teeth. His features were attractive, but constant frowning and disapproval had deepened the lines around his eyes into off-grey seams. Even in the half-light, Arthur could tell that the king’s nails would probably be black and crusty with grime.
I always considered the Geats as a clean race, Arthur thought, his nose wrinkling at a stench that wafted from the king’s clothes, garments that seemed so tidy when compared with Heardred’s dirty skin. This man is filthy, Arthur decided. His servants have cared for his possessions, but they’ve all fled and left him to his own devices. It seems they don’t care for him as a person.
Suddenly, a knife materialised in Heardred’s right hand.
‘Who are you to disturb your king?’ Heardred snapped, mistaking Arthur for a Geat warrior in search of plunder. His voice was high-pitched and coarse-grained. ‘My guards will cut your throat if you don’t take to your heels and leave my tent.’
‘Your guards are mostly dead or dying, Heardred, but those who remain are preoccupied with saving their own skins,’ Arthur replied, for the sound of desperate, hand-to-hand combat could still be heard beyond the tent walls. A high-pitched scream raised the hair on Arthur’s arms, but Heardred’s eyes swivelled wildly around the room as he desperately sought a means of escape.
‘You’re one of the Dene dogs then,’ Heardred hissed. ‘I’ll pay you in good red gold if you allow me to pass.’
‘You can keep your gold, Heardred. You’ve killed and enslaved children in my name, so our business is personal. I’m not a Dene! I’m a Briton, and I believe you’ve heard of me.’
‘The Last Dragon!’ Heardred snarled and attempted to snatch up a long-hafted axe from beside his sleeping pallet. Unfortunately, he was unexpectedly clumsy. In a blinding panic, he dropped the axe – and almost lost the knife as he tried to pick it up.
Arthur was close enough now to smell the hot stink of urine adding to the cesspit of smells emanating from Heardred’s greyish flesh and soul. Arthur was almost gagging, but his iron discipline stood him in good stead. This sad excuse for a king was almost too vile to kill.
‘Then I’ll make sure you are the last of the dragons,’ Heardred shouted and threw his knife at Arthur with the speed of an arrow. The act was so sudden that a lesser opponent would have been killed.
Arthur was tired and the dagger had buried itself in his thigh. But, leaving the weapon in place to minimise the loss of blood, he took three quick paces forward to extract his revenge.
Heardred yelped like a frightened hound and his panic only accentuated the sly expression on his face.
‘No one will come to help you, Heardred,’ the Briton told him. ‘I sent a warning to you that I was called the King’s Bane, so you should have listened.’
Heardred began to shout for help in a voice that rose higher and higher. Arthur took no notice, but simply padded after his prey with the king’s dagger jutting out of his leg like an obscene finger.
Outside, Snorri and the crewmen heard the screaming begin, but they forced their ears to hear nothing. After all, dragons must be paid their measure of blood and pain, if they are to be recompensed for their service.
CHAPTER VI
Homecoming
Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
The Bible, Matthew 6:21
‘I want to go home,’ Arthur whispered to himself, so softly that the wakeful Snorri barely heard him as the helmsman tried to find a comfortable hollow in the sod to ease the persistent ache in his spine.
The long exhalation that accompanied the words convinced Snorri that Arthur was deeply unhappy with his lot. Not for a moment did the helmsman consider that the young prince was speaking of The Holding, Stormbringer’s farm complex, even if his sister and Blaise were awaiting him there.
My master wants to leave behind the man he thinks he has become, Snorri thought with a sad feeling of compassion.
In the end, Arthur had chosen to give Heardred a quick death when the snivelling coward curled into a foetal ball on a soiled carpet. The man had wept noisily until Arthur had turned away from his intended task in disgust and shame. Finally, the Briton had sheathed Oakheart to protect the noble blade from any dishonour that would stain it with the base blood of such a monster.
Arthur’s reluctance to execute the pathetic Geat king was so strong that he almost decided to call in his companions to drag Heardred away in chains, but the scream in his brain suddenly became piercing.
Instantly he ducked, dropped down to one knee and half-turned as if felled by a blow. Above his head, the blade of Heardred’s axe whined uselessly to cleave empty air rather than the neck that had been exposed only an instant before.
Arthur’s howl of rage mingled with the scream in his head so he was un
able to tell which sound was real and which was not. Heardred had extended his reach in an attempt to slaughter Arthur without making a sound, but he was completely unbalanced when his weapon failed to come into contact with Arthur’s body. The weight of the heavy axe dragged Heardred’s whole arm downward, while Arthur reacted out of hard-learned weapons’ practice. The Dragon Knife slithered into his hand and the king’s eyes blinked at him in the lamplight as the dagger slid between his ribs.
‘You’ve killed me.’ Small flecks of blood appeared on Heardred’s lips. ‘How can this be?’ The king’s eyes darkened with confusion.
‘You took one treacherous step too far, Heardred, and you’ve offended all good men by your actions. Yes! I’ve killed you, and I wish I could kill you a hundred times for the sins you’ve committed. You’ll not suffer like the children of Lund who are still living in the brothels of the East. You’ll not feel the agonies of burned flesh like the women you’ve incinerated in their own homes. Yet you will surely die! And once will suffice!’
To punctuate his words, Arthur twisted the knife viciously in the wound and cut through tissue and bone until blood gushed from Heardred’s mouth and nose. Then he wrenched the blade free and the blood flow doubled in its wake. Heardred dropped to his knees and tried to hold his chest together. The tide of blood prevented the king from speaking, but Arthur was grateful when he finally fell on his face. The monster’s muddy green eyes had accused the young man, almost as if the king was an innocent, murdered senselessly in his own tent.
Snorri appeared through the tent flap into the circle of light in time to hear the Geat’s final, shuddering breath. The Dene helmsman grinned drily.
‘That was quick! I expected a worm like Heardred might take some time to die.’
‘Behead the bastard and put the head in a box. Send it to Beowulf with my compliments, and an explanation that the king attacked me when my back was turned after he had surrendered. You can also express the hope that his kinsman’s death will not be an impediment to any treaty between Beowulf and Stormbringer, a pact that would be of great value to both their peoples.’