by C. R. May
Hygelac's head snapped back to the front, sure that he was about to find the Francish forces tumbling away in disorder but to his dismay he found that he had only broken through the advanced ranks of the Francish position. A further fifty yards ahead of his now disordered troops, the enemy had drawn up in a solid wall of shields around their leader. Scores of spears were being added to the defence with every passing moment as more and more men scrambled across the pontoon from the southern bank.
As Hygelac hesitated a roar came from his right and he swung round just in time to see the herebeacn of the Fris carve its way deeply into the Geat flank, rolling up the line like a great steel and leather clad wave . Suddenly it was Geatish warriors who were scrambling, panic stricken, away from an aggressive and well led charge and Hygelac watched in dismay as the disaster unfolded.
It could be only a short while now until the end and his mind raced as he weighed up the rapidly diminishing options still before him. He glanced back at the Franc shield burg but instantly discounted a further attack. It was a further fifty paces away and his forces had lost all sense of cohesion in the assault on the forward position. Not only was it already too strong to attack but the defence was growing in numbers by the moment. He knew that great numbers of Francs would be streaming across the bridge which they had finally left undefended to the rear and an attack from that direction must be imminent. In truth there was only one place where they could hope to make any impression before they were wiped out and, as if to confirm his choice, the black and blue raven banner of the Frisian champion hove into view.
Hygelac turned to his remaining hearth warriors as he made to sheath his seax. To his embarrassment he could not find the mouth of the scabbard and he hoped that his men would not take it as a sign of nerves as he jabbed again and again at thin air but, to his surprise, he found that they were all laughing. Wulf nodded his head down as he explained.
“You seem to have mislaid it, lord.”
Hygelac looked down and was shocked to see that a great gash had been opened up in the side of his mail shirt by what he imagined must have been a spear thrust. The weapon had carried on and removed both his purse and seax scabbard as it passed within a whisker of disembowelling him.
The king joined in the laughter and tossed the fabulously crafted blade to the ground.
All around him the last flickers of Geat resistance were dying down. Men stood in small groups, back to back, as they attempted to ward off the blows which now came at them from all sides in a desperate attempt to live a heartbeat longer.
The king turned to the grim faced warrior still resolutely holding the herebeacn. It was a position of high honour in the army to carry the white boar into battle and Hygelac nodded to the man in recognition of his bravery that day. After the king himself the man would have been the focal point of any attack by their fiend and he had done magnificently well to carry it to the end.
King Hygelac drew his sword and heft his battered shield for the last time on middle earth. Sweeping a last smile around his hearth warriors and closest friends he roared his battle cry and bolted towards the raven warrior.
Beowulf gasped at the scene which unfolded before him as he cleared the rise. In his worst nightmares he had thought to find the army of the Geats resolutely defending the town against a horde of Francs and Frisians, but in truth he had quickly dismissed even that scenario as ridiculous. The Saxons had all agreed that the Fris had been defeated at the start of the campaign and, although they had warned him of the size of the Francish army, they had themselves shown no great fear of it. They had clearly been accustomed to fighting and beating them on a regular basis and there was no reason to doubt that the Geats would not do likewise.
He looked across in stunned disbelief as he realised that he may be witnessing the heroic death of a great king.
Slowly his years of training reasserted themselves and he began to read the information which lay spread out before him. The town of Dorestada nestled against the banks of the river Rin. Ahead of him, straight down the road on which his horse stood patiently waiting for its next command, was a bridge which appeared to be held by a small Geat force and away to the right a pontoon bridge had been constructed from a number of boats. The crushed grass on the far bank told that a large number of men had crossed here, outflanking the men on the bridge and moving forward up the slight rise ahead. They were obviously the Fris and he could see them fighting now under their sea eagle banners. To the right of these a large force of Francs seemed to be watching the fight from a strong defensive position under their own Francisca flags and wooden crosses.
The fighting was all but over with small knots of men fighting to the last all over the field but he watched with a strange mixture of horror and unbelievable pride as the last organised group of Geats disappeared into the great wall of Fris. There was a brief struggle and then the white boar herebeacn of his people dipped, was thrust upwards for a final time into the golden light of the sunset before being beaten down into the shadows.
A tremendous roar of victory arose from the throats of thousands of men as they wildly celebrated both the demise of their enemy and the now almost certain fact that they themselves would live to see another day.
Beowulf became aware that Cola and Hrafn had walked their mounts forward to come abreast of him. Cola's voice cracked with emotion as he tore his gaze from the field opposite and looked at his lord.
“Shall we go, lord?”
Beowulf looked at him in confusion.
“Go? Go where?”
“Back to the coast, lord. The ships must be there with the rest of the army.”
Beowulf swung round as he realised the importance of his hearth warrior's words.
“Of course!” he exclaimed as he broke into a relieved smile.“What was it that Brand said?”
Hrafn nodded as the words came back to him. Looking at the numbers of bodies strewn across the field before them there was no way that they represented the full contingent of warriors who had sailed south.
“The only way that the Francs will defeat your king is if he makes a mistake like dividing his forces,” Hrafn repeated before they all chirped together, “which he would never do, would he lord!”
It was obvious to Beowulf now that the Francs and Frisians had caught them with their army divided. The absence of the ships indicated that a large part of the army had already left the town and either returned to the Aelmere or sailed directly downriver to the German Sea. A sudden thought gripped Beowulf like an icy fist. Hygelac would have commanded one force himself and appointed his son, Beowulf's cousin, Heardred, to lead the other. He had just watched one of them die in the meadow opposite but which one? Both were kinsmen, Hygelac his uncle and one time foster father and his cousin Heardred his closest friend. Without making a conscious decision he suddenly found that he had urged his mount on, into the town. The answer to his question lay there he knew and, although he dreaded the finality of knowing, he knew that he must.
Dorestada was a settlement built on two shallow but distinct terraces above the river, no doubt he reflected, as a result of the road and bridge which crossed the Rin at this point. From the sounds of the celebrations which were rolling across the town from the southern bank it was clear that the fighting was over and the population were beginning to cautiously venture from their homes again. A few began to join in the victory celebrations until the sound of horses caused them to turn and scatter as they recognised the Geats for what they were.
The echoing sound made by their hoof beats changed abruptly as they clattered down the final terrace and emerged onto a wide waterfront. Ahead of them a small force of Fris were too busy congratulating each other and hurling abuse at the isolated Geat force to notice their arrival and they simply steered their mounts through the gaps between the dancing men and clumped onto the bridge.
Dismounting, Beowulf strode forward to the warrior who had come forward to greet him and gratefully took the proffered ale barrel, gulping do
wn the heady brew as Cola and Hrafn did likewise at his side. He finished with a gasp of pleasure and, wiping his beard on his sleeve, smiled at the man before him.
“Ealdorman Hromund, any news?”
A rumble of ironic laughter ran through the Geatish warriors at the absurdity of the question and Hromund shook his head wearily.
“Beowulf, why are you here? This fight took place before you arrived, there is no disgrace in not throwing your life away chasing a dead cause. Get back on your horse and get to the coast while you still have a chance!”
Beowulf shook his head.
“I watched a kinsman die from that rise, so I was here. Tell me who led our army so magnificently, I have a duty to avenge him.”
Hromund pulled a wry smile and nodded that he understood. It was one of the most important obligations of kinship that a killing be compensated in blood or gold.
“My friend King Hygelac led the Geats here. Your cousin Heardred sailed for the German Sea two days ago. We were to make a last sweep along the Rin and meet up at the coast in a week and head home.” He grimaced. “They could not have caught us at a worse time, Beowulf, divided and without our ships.”
Beowulf took a final long draught from the barrel and swung himself back onto his mount. Cola and Hrafn followed suit and Beowulf made to tell them to stay with Hromund and his men before he recognised the futility. The time had come for every man to choose his place to die and he would not be the one to deny them the right to go to the Allfather having fulfilled their vows and fall at their lord's side.
Urging his mount forward with a click of his tongue, Beowulf walked the horse down to the body of Fris warriors guarding the southern end of the bridge. The men there had finally realised that mounted warriors had appeared on the bridge which they had been tasked with guarding and had stopped celebrating the victory on the meadow behind them and rushed back to their duty.
To Beowulf's amusement the man in charge of the group called his men together and formed two ranks in honour of the party in the mistaken assumption that they must be a Frisian lord and his hearth warriors. It was an understandable mistake. They had been distracted and they knew for a fact that the Geats on the bridge had no horses with them. The bearing and quality of their armour and weapons clearly marked them out as elite warriors, possibly royal, and he had reacted accordingly.
Beowulf kicked in and trotted through the ranks of Frisian warriors as Hromund's men, fortified by their attempts at denying the Fris any remaining ale as spoils of war, howled with laughter on the bridge. He glanced down at the leading Frisian and nodded his thanks, smiling at the confusion writ large on the man's face as the cries and catcalls from the watching Geats began to sow the first seeds of doubt in his mind. Breaking through, Beowulf urged his horse into a trot, angling off towards the cluster of banners midway across the slight slope, only slowing his mount into a walk as he became sure that he was out of spear range of the Fris. An angon in the back from an embarrassed guard would be an idiotic way to die after all they had been through to get here.
The first flush of victory was subsiding amongst the warriors as he reached the scene of the battle and they were beginning to hurry about in a desperate scramble to loot the bodies of the fallen Geats before others beat them to the choicest pickings. Beowulf reined in at the edge of the scene of fighting and studied the ground with a practised eye. Any warrior of his experience could read a battlefield as well as a wizard could read rune sticks and this was as clear as he had ever seen.
The king had almost been surprised by the arrival of the Francs and had rushed his main force forward to delay them at this river, leaving a small force under Hromund to guard their escape route as they either gathered in the horses or recalled the ships. Unfortunately the Frisians had arrived from the North and trapped them on this peninsula. After heavy fighting both Geat positions had been outflanked by river crossings and Hygelac had pulled his men back to the slight rise to the left. At bay and with no hope of relief, the king had chosen to attack the enemy and ensure his place at the benches of valhall rather than become overwhelmed where he stood at bay.
A ragged line of bloodied and gore covered bodies marked the point of contact of the opposing shield walls at the foot of the slope and a little further on numerous sad islands marked the last defensive positions taken up by the groups of Geats who managed to break through the Francish shield wall only to become cut off in the clearer space beyond.
Swirls of crows were circling the field like an angry cloud and the trees away to the left were a mass of cawing impatience as they waited for the bodies of the dead to be stripped and abandoned to their razor-like beaks.
Away to the West the horses had pulled the sun ever lower as the iron-grey wolf chased her down. The sky now was a brawl of reds and yellows as Beowulf raised his gaze, seeking out the standard of the Francs from the midst of the waving, jostling multitude.
Suddenly he saw it, the francisca banner of King Theodoric and his clan and he snorted at his inability to spot the largest banner on the field earlier. It was of course the only one stationary, kings do not wander over battlefields like overexcited women, men collect the spoils of war and bring them to him. He turned the head of his mount away from the death field and walked it across.
Dismounting nearby Beowulf, Cola and Hrafn unbound their shields and checked their equipment, tightening straps on war shirts, arm guards and helms. Beowulf ran his hand over the face of his shield and gazed on its beauty for what he imagined would be the last time, smiling as he remembered the moment that he had been presented with it. It had been a gift from his grandfather, King Hrethel, Hygelac's father, the moment he had passed the initiation ritual and been accepted into the brotherhood of the wolf warriors. That night he had been reborn as a man and it was fitting that the shield accompany him in death. He ran his hand across the gilt eagle and boar figures which adorned the face of the shield and recalled the fights with each which had caused them to be fashioned.
Looking up he realised that his men were waiting for him to lead them forward and he smiled and clasped them warmly to him. No words passed between them, none were needed, and they turned and, flicking the silk peace bands from the hilt of their swords, strode purposely towards the carousing Francs.
The king was standing beneath the royal banner, surrounded by a knot of magnificently attired warriors, obviously Francish lords and their hearth warriors, and as he drew closer he noticed with disdain that few of them seemed to have sullied their flamboyant armour that day. The king made a comment and the lords laughed heartily though not, he noted with approval the hearth warriors, who remained alert to any danger to their lord even at the moment of victory.
As they grew near one of the warriors smiled at a comment made by his friend and continued casually passing his gaze over the men nearby. Suddenly he must have realised that there was something out of the ordinary with the group of three warriors who were walking deliberately towards them. The smile fell from his face and his head snapped back as he brought his framea down and challenged them.
“Stay where you are and give me your names!”
Beowulf halted and planted his feet four square. He was close enough now for his voice to carry to the king and he waited until the group turned his way as warriors rushed to support their fellow sentinel. As the conversations trailed away Beowulf drew his sword and clashed the blade three times against the steel rim of his shield as he began the ritual challenge.
“Greetings to Theodoric, shield of the Francs.
I am Hygelac's kinsman, a member of his hall troop.
As a young man Woden, fury, granted me victories against both my king's fiend and hel's slathering monsters.
Beowulf Ecgtheowson is my name, Ealdorman of the Waegmundings, a Geatish folk.
Each man here knows the truth that it is better to avenge the slaying of dear ones then indulge in useless mourning.
Living in this world means waiting for our end for each of us.
Whoever can do so let them win glory before death, a reputation to ring down the ages for as long as men huddle in smoky halls and regale each other with tales of heroes to chase away the dark winter nights.
I stand before you to demand the wergild for a slain kinsman as is the custom everywhere.
Send forth Hygelac's slayer that I may claim the blood-price for the loss of a great king.”
A gentle ripple of laughter had run through the watching Francs as Beowulf had begun his address but it had quickly tailed away as they realised both the identity of the newcomer and the purpose of his challenge. The Francish lords turned to their leader as the warriors held Beowulf at spears length. Beowulf could see now that the Franc was a young man, younger than himself, and he realised that he must have misidentified him during the challenge. The man came forward and pushed his way through the cordon of spear men, dismissing the protestations of his lords with a casual flick of his hand. He nodded respectfully as Beowulf glared down at him.
“Beowulf Ecgtheowson, your reputation is known to me.”
Nervous spear men were beginning to move to the flanks of Beowulf and his men as they sought to protect their lord from harm but the Franc glanced across and waved them away.
“Forgive my men from laughing during your challenge, they are still in high spirits. I am afraid that you assumed that I was my father, Theodoric. I am Theudobert, I commanded here.”
Beowulf lowered his head in supplication.
“I apologise, lord. I have just arrived at this place.”
To his surprise Theudobert chuckled.
“Yes, I know. You have spent the summer in Saxland so, if I am not mistaken, you have not so much as raised your voice against our people, much less a sword. Happily that means that I have no quarrel with you and you are free to leave.”