The Hoodsman - Killing Kings

by Skye Smith

  "Anything else? Ahh yes, you are the abbey's man. Anything else?"

  "Raynar, sire. I saw no sign of mail, most had leather jerkins with rings, and a few had the Byzantine scale armour, but surprising few were wearing mail."

  A ship's captain standing in the row of men ahead of Raynar waved his hand. "If it please your majesty, ships' crew often do not carry mail. It causes drownings because it is too heavy and too hard to take off. Besides it rusts quickly in the salt air. Instead they wear a brynja, which I suppose could be described as a leather jerkin with metal rings as the lad has said, but it is far more than just that.

  The metal rings on the surface do not rust yet are strong enough to stop slash cuts and jabs with broad swords and axes. The leather jerkin slows arrows and daggers. But inside the leather is sheepskin with the wool felted and oiled and worn wool side in. It not only keeps them warm in wet weather, and sea winds, but also cushions every blow. If they fall overboard, it will keep them afloat for enough minutes to cast off the weight that would sink them. A hot sun tomorrow will be a good ally, for they will cast off their brynja in the heat."

  Harold thanked the captain and looked again to Raynar and opened his hands in an unspoken gesture asking if there was more. Raynar spoke again. "May I use my Byzantine bow tomorrow sire? It served its former master too well and I would bloody his friends with it."

  Harold snapped his fingers at an aid, and ordered him to bring the bow, then he turned to Raynar and asked, "the armour too?" to which Raynar responded, "Though it is fine armour of Syrian steel, it is of no use to me. You are welcome to use it, but I will be swimming rivers on the morrow, and armour sinks." There were gasps at the directness of such talk to a king. The king ignored them and thanked Raynar for his offer.

  Hereward and Raynar were another hour getting free of the Marquee. Raynar had to proof read the copies of his new map and then explain them to the Earls. Hereward was answering specific questions of lords who had been assigned specific tasks. It was less than two hours until dawn when they finally curled into their cloaks.

  Raynar had been so busy that it wasn't until his head was down, that all the fears of going into his first battle hit his mind and made him shiver and run towards the latrine pit.

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  THE HOODSMAN - Killing Kings by Skye Smith

  Chapter 20 - The Battle for Stamford Bridge, in September 1066

  Hereward and Raynar had been split up. Wylie was the only skirmisher with Raynar and they were scouting with a patrol of a hundred mounted archers on the east side of the Derwent river. Hereward was with another large scouting party on the York side of the Derwent.

  Their mission was simple to explain but hard to do. Block all communication between the Norse army at Stamford and the Norse ships at Riccall on the Humber. They had ridden hard, swum the Ouse, ridden hard, swum the Derwent, which had placed them about halfway between Stamford and Riccall and then they spread out on each side of the valley to slowly sweep north up every cartway, and bridleway, and track.

  On Raynar’s side of the river they were under the command of an expert archer from Nottinghamshire called Rodor. The other archers told Raynar that it was a good thing that the Earls had placed Rodor in.charge. Whomever they had named, all of them would still follow Rodor. Within the hour they had slaughtered a half dozen carters, and their forager escorts, and had captured two horsemen who may have been messengers.

  Raynar had been using his Byzantine bow exclusively since his first practice shots, although he carried his army issue ash selfbow, and his handmade staffbow tied to his saddle. The Byzantine bow was short enough that he could use the army issue arrows with it. It was also short enough that it could be used while riding a horse or in thick bush. Unfortunately he was a poor rider, so he was forced to stop the horse to use the bow. Still it was better than the other archers. They had to dismount to use their bows.

  For a short bow, its huge power was like magic. Its three and a half foot span had as much power as his seven foot staff bow, and it used normal arrows. Though he could shoot standard army arrows, they were too light for long range accuracy. Luckily' he always carried some of John's lead rings, and those he would crimp onto any shaft as required. This allowed him to keep in reserve his precious supply of the Byzantine warrior's armour-piercing arrows that were matched to the bow.

  Timing was everything in Harold and Hereward's battle plan. Since Raynar knew the wider plan and had a map, Rodor kept him within earshot. They did not want to be too far north to be spotted, until the main attacks had begun. They need not have worried about the timing, for when the main attack began they could hear the alarm horns from three miles away.

  Once they heard the horns, they sped up the pace of their sweep. Raynar ached. He had been in the saddle fiftten hours of the last thirty. That was more than the sum total of his saddle time over the rest of his life. After the first five of those hours, he had been loaned a sheepskin by another skirmisher to put under his bum, but it was already too late to save him from the sores he already had.

  As they approached the southern edge of the high ground above the bridge, the valley narrowed on both sides of the river. He could see some of Hereward's riders across the river, pacing them. He looked hard ahead. Something was wrong. By now there should be English shieldmen on the hill, but nothing was moving. He sped his horse, ignoring the pain in his butt.

  He was closing fast on the bridge now, and could see that it was blocked at both sides. The English shieldmen were blocking one end and the Norse shieldmen the other. There was much yelling and cheering on each side. The vision reminded him more of a cock fight in Scafeld than what he expected of a pitched battle against the Norse.

  Once he was close enough to see clearly, he could see only two fighters on the bridge, and they had the center of the bridge to themselves. A giant of a man was on the Norse side, perhaps as big as his friend John, and he was, at that moment, swinging his huge ax to sever the head of the champion fighting from the English side. A cheer went up on the Norse side and another English champion stepped forward onto the bridge.

  Raynar saw Hereward arguing with a lord on the other side. He ran his horse to the bank and hailed him from across the River Derwent. "What the fuck are they doing? They should be up the hill by now!" he yelled.

  "This is the stuff of legends. They won't be hurried!" Hereward yelled back.

  "What about the hostages?" Raynar could feel his anger building.

  "They will have to wait," called the lord who was arguing with Hereward.

  "This is against the Kings orders!" Raynar shouted angrily.

  "Get stuffed, puppy!" the lord bellowed back grandly.

  Raynar swung his horse around. About fifty of Rodor's archers had caught up with him, including Rodor. He pointed to the Norse side of the bridge and yelled, "Cover me!" to Rodor, then he turned his horse down the bank towards the bridge.

  He wasn't a good enough rider to keep his saddle down this muddy slope so he grabbed his bow and quiver and leaped off the horse while it was still churning the bank with its hooves. He ran along a log left over from the construction of the bridge, fishing out two of his precious Byzantine arrows as he did so. At the end of the log he stopped, caught his balance, and looked up.

  The Norse axeman was truly a giant. The Englishman he was fighting looked like a child in comparison, though he himself was a big man. The axe man was swinging a battle axe in one hand and a light axe in the other. The Englishman was hiding behind his shield.

  From the corner of his eye he could see two Norsemen sliding down the embankment towards him, while they yelled up to their mates at the Norse end of the bridge. Raynar aimed and loosed. He waited for the first arrow to hit and then he loosed the second. The first took the giant axeman in the ear, and spun him round with the force. The second took him in the throat.

  Raynar spun around on the log, almost slipping while fishing for any arrow to loose at the Norsemen wh
o were sliding towards him and getting close. He need not have worried. The two men sprouted arrows like hedgehogs.

  He could hear Hereward yelling orders at the top of his lungs, "Archers, clear the bridge! Kill them all!" Raynar ran back down the log to the bank and then hung onto his saddle and had the horse drag him diagonally back up the bank away from the bridge. By the time he was up the bank and in the saddle again, there was carnage at the Norse end of the bridge. Archers from both sides of the river were pouring aimed shafts into those unfortunate men.

  There were now three separate mad scrambles of men. There was the mad scramble of the English forces racing across the bridge and finally following the King's orders to gain the high ground. There was the mad scramble at the Norse end of the bridge to raise a shield wall against the English flood. And there was a vast mad scramble of Norse backing south away from the main battle for the ford, who were also on their way to the high ground above the bridge.

  Raynar wheeled his horse through the ranks of Rodor's fifty archers. "Leave this skirmish to Hereward’s archers and get mounted. Follow me."

  The archers did not follow him until Rodor, seeing what the lad was up to, leaped onto his horse, and spurred him on to catch the lad. Raynar galloped full speed south along the empty part of the hill and then turned and spurred the horse in a diagonal climb northward up the hill.

  Near the top the horse started flagging in loose dirt and he was not a good enough rider to handle the problem, so he flung himself off and led the horse the last twenty feet to the top. He was the first man from any side to reach the top of the high ground.

  He did not bother with the horse, but instead grabbed bow and quiver and ran along the west edge of the slope until he reached the point where directly below him were the first of the Norse shieldmen struggling up the slope against the weight of their weapons and shields and brynja.

  There were not enough arrows in the world to stop these men. Raynar shot the shieldman closest to him before that warrior could reach the top and give him trouble. The shaft took the man by surprise and he fell backwards down the slope in fear and agony. As he fell and slid down the loose dirt he took out the legs of the two men below him. This started a minor avalanche of men and weapons and especially shields.

  Rodor and the other archers had by now reached the top and observed the avalanche effect and also started loosing arrows at those Norse warriors closest to the top of the high ground. Raynar began to walk slowly north along the ridge of the hillside, with the other archers forming a single line along the ridge behind him.

  "Stop! Stop shooting wildly! Reserve some of your arrows. We will need some to escape this trap." It was Wylie, the young but trained skirmisher shouting at the top of his lungs, just steps behind Raynar. "We've put the fear of Woden in them and it has slowed them down, now let's do something to win this battle. Kill the leaders. Don't shoot the men who are climbing, shoot the men who are ordering them to climb."

  Rodor chimed in with his bellowing voice, "You men at the back! Stay with the horses and don't let the Norse up behind us. Save your arrows to make sure we can get back to you. The rest of you - if you are low on arrows, or if the Norse get close to the horses, run for the horses so you can gallop down to the south. If you get cut off, then run for those trees to the east of us." He opened one hand to them, waiting for a confirmation of his orders and everyone yelled it back to him. "Right, now let's get killing those leaders!" he yelled.

  Raynar was still in the lead and he recognized the sparkle of costly Byzantine armour further to the north. He marked him as a leader. He ran for a hundred paces to get within range. A swarm of Norse warriors were near to cresting the ridge up at the ford end of the high ground, and he was closing the distance towards them at full speed. He summoned his courage and ran another hundred paces closer to the glint of costly armour, thinking that even a Byzantine arrow may fail against the Syrian steel of that armour if he wasn't close enough.

  Over his shoulder he could see that he had left the line of archers far behind. Only Wylie was still with him. The man in the costly armour was one of the first to crest the hill. He stood tall, removed his helmet to wipe his sweaty forehead, and slowly turned in a full circle to see what was happening in the valley and on all sides of the hill.

  With his helmet off, Raynar had one chance at a head shot. He drew with all the strength of his porter's back and shoulders, aimed, and loosed. His heavy arrow took the tall man through the cheek. He was a big bugger. It seemed to take him a long time to fall and hit the ground. Raynar then realized that he was being lowered gently to the ground by the other men around him.

  The closest six of Norse axemen turned towards him and screamed their fury, and then began to move towards him, beating their axes against their shields. Wylie yelled at him to run for it. Raynar turned on his heel, but he and Wylie had stayed too long and ventured too far. There were now Norse on the crest between them and the rest of the archers and the horses.

  Wylie was signaling Rodor and the other archers to run for it, as he watched them loose a volley of covering arrows. Then as one they sprinted for their horses. The good news was that most of the Norse between Wylie and the retreating archers were now making a hopeless chase after the mounted archers.

  Wylie turned and began to run eastward toward a line of trees. Raynar followed him with all the speed his exhaustion could muster. All he could think of was that this would not be a good time to trip. The heavily-laden Norse behind them gave up the chase. They were exhausted from battling to the base of the hill and then the climb up.

  Raynar slowed and called to Wylie, "Wylie, you go on. I am going to swing north and look down the north slope to see what is happening to the hostages." The distance to the north edge was further than it looked. Perhaps an eighth of a mile. He was just about to peer over the edge when he heard heavy breathing behind him. Wylie had caught him up.

  "I can't leave you yet, your training isn't over," he panted. "Besides, Hereward ordered me to look after you."

  Together they peered over the edge of the hill and looked North. Thankfully there were no Norse climbing the slope below them. There were Norse below them, they just weren't climbing. There were hundreds of hostages tied together along ship's ropes that were secured to posts at each end.

  Guarding the hostages were the Norse walking wounded, hundreds of them. They wouldn't be climbing this hill, but they finished any hope that Raynar had of helping the hostages. Wylie grabbed his arm and told him that the high ground where they had stood not moments ago was now swarming with Norse. It was time for them to retreat to the woods.

  They trotted down the north east slope of the hill towards the woods. At the woods they found a shallow gully that seemed to be the upper end of a gently sloping and ever-widening gully down to where the hostages and the walking wounded were.

  Wylie was saying something to him. "Think there are any Norse in these woods? This gully would seem to be an easy way for them to flee the battlefield. Even the wounded could climb that gully." The thought that there might be a lot of Norse hidden in these woods did not slow their pace. The thought of Norse in the woods was preferable to the reality that behind them was a swarm of Norse warriors in a total lust for the blood of English skirmishers.

  They continued past the first bushes and into the deeper shadow before they stopped to take stock of their situation. Wylie had but three arrows left. Raynar had three plus one last Byzantine one. Wylie had his wicked long dagger. Raynar his porte'rs knife, and his Byzantine short sword. Both of them had some smoke-dried salt pork.

  "We're fucked," Raynar commented chewing the pork, "despite the fineness of this blade, I am no swordsman. I am a porter. What in Woden's name am I doing here?"

  "Don't count on me using your sword. I am the son of an innkeeper. The Scarlet Man Inn of York, fine food, soft beds, hearty ale. My father sent me with the fyrd to save on some taxes." Wylie chewed slowly. "My mam's is a lot more tender and juicy. Her and my younge
st sister do the cooking. My oldest brother is the ale master and the barkeep. My middle brother and oldest sister run the bedrooms and the tables. My father just counts the money, and complains when we spend any."

  "Your father risked you for taxes?" asked Raynar between chews.

  "I'm just the third son to him. The fyrd wanted me because I won a ribbon shooting practice arrows at straw targets at the last fair. I had never shot any living thing before today, though I have tried for deer a few times."

  "But you know so much. Everything you told me was true." Raynar spat out some gristle.

  "I know so much because Hereward drilled it into my head for two weeks before you came. Training you was his test for me," Wylie laughed aloud and then put his hand over his mouth.

  "Are any of your kin with the hostages?"

  "I don't know. I suppose they could be." His laughter turned to a glum frown.