by Skye Smith
"I'm sorry, Wylie. Even if we did have arrows, we couldn't help those hostages. The guards may be injured, but they are not helpless, and there are a lot of the bastards."
"If you think it would help, I will walk over to those Norse on the ridge and ask for some of our arrows back," replied Wylie. He peered out between the leaves back towards the hill, "They are setting up a shield wall along the ridge. We didn't kill enough of the leaders. That last one you shot, the tall bugger. He was important. As soon as you dropped him they formed a shield wall around him."
They crept deeper into the woods, expecting a berserker behind every bramble bush and every tree. They could see the other edge of the woods now and wondered if they should move north or south. "If only the idiots at the bridge had followed orders," Raynar whispered, so tired he wanted to weep, "the battle would be over by now. Thousands may die because of that foolishness on the bridge."
He felt overwhelmed with the amount of slaughter he had seen today. He wondered what he would see in his dreams tonight. Torn limbs. Spouting blood. Hacked bodies. Bodies split like butchered pigs. He shuddered and pretended he was cold.
Wylie whispered back, "I could never fight in a shield wall. The slaughter is too close. With an arrow the damage is all far away from you."
"Shhh, I hear something!" warned Raynar in a hiss. "There are men in these woods."
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THE HOODSMAN - Killing Kings by Skye Smith
Chapter 21 - Killing a King, Stamford, Yorkshire in September 1066
"You two are the worst excuses for skirmishers I have ever met. I heard you talking a mile away."
The two of them looked around and were face to face with the point of a nocked arrow. It was Osmund, Hereward's second-in-command. They both said his name at the same time and slapped him on the arm. "Do you have spare arrows?" Wylie asked immediately.
"Arrows!" replied Osmund. "Shit boy, I've got half the fucking army coming up behind me. Since I had led the scouts that found the back way onto this hill, I was volunteered to show everyone else the way. The ford had been won, and we just marched across it and up the street. This high ground is still in Norse hands, though. Earl Edwin and a thousand men are to attack it from behind,"
The two exhausted lads looked at each other with widening eyes.
Osmund eyed the game trail through the wood. "Is this the track I need, then? I was hoping I wasn't lost. It never pays to look foolish in front of your lord." He grinned a little sheepishly.
Raynar felt a rush of energy in his blood. "This is a good track. It leads both to a gentle climb to the northern crown of the hill, and to a gentle gully back down into the valley. Where is Edwin? I must speak to him."
"An Earl won't speak to the likes of you, boy. But if you must be embarrassed, I will take you to him." Osmund looked at the other lad and said, "Wylie, stay here to mark the track and I will send the first of the shieldmen to you. Remind them not to break cover."
Raynar followed Osmund out of the shadows and into the sunshine. He blinked at the brightness, and watched as bushes turned into men as they stood up. They were more of Hereward's skirmishers. "Hey Raynar, you lost?" one called, and laughed.
Osmund hushed them, "Wylie is marking the track. Make sure the shieldmen don't break cover before we own the woods."
Raynar looked ahead and saw Edwin, "Stay with your men Osmund, I see him," and he ran to the Earl's side.
"It is the abbey's man, Raynar, sire," announced the Earl's aide. Raynar recognized him as the one that had found him his bow. Was that just last night? The Earl waved to the shieldmen to keep them moving while he stood surrounded by his personal guard. He was a young man but he was breathing hard. He gave Raynar a curt nod. "Report," was all he said.
Raynar quickly told him everything about the fight to keep the high ground from the Norse, the Norse shieldwall on the west ridge, the size of the wood, the slope up to the Norse position, the slope down the gully, the hostages, and their guards.
"There are less than two hundred guards with the prisoners," said Raynar, "and they are all walking wounded. Mostly shoulder and arm wounds. There are twice that number of prisoners. We wouldn't even need to fight the guards. A hundred men could form a shield wall between the guards and the hostages. We could free them and march them back here up the gentle slope of the gully."
The Earl was not enthused about weakening his force before the Norse were pushed off the high ground, and he said so.
Raynar did not give up. If the prisoners were not moved they would be caught between the armies, or used as a human shield by the walking wounded. "You don't need to make up your mind until you look down the slope for yourself. The slope is not high. You could direct the shieldwall yourself by yelling commands down from the crest."
The Earl started marching again and told Raynar to stay with him. The aid caught up to them carrying a quiver of arrows for Raynar. Edwin started talking. "Raynar, we want the Norse to break and retreat. They will retreat this way. It is their only way. If I show my men too soon they will not break. The prisoners will have to wait. I have no choice."
They reached the track through the woods. It was no longer a track. The feet of five hundred heavy infantry had stomped a road through the woods. As soon as they were on the track they could hear the sounds of the battle ahead. Osmund, Wylie and the other skirmishers were trotting towards them.
"The battle has changed again," Osmund reported. "We snuck a look down into the valley and the Norse have stopped retreating from the ford, and have stopped climbing the hill."
Edwin issued orders to the shieldmen commanders to string their men out along the side of the hill but to stay hidden in the wood. They were not to break the cover of the wood until the order was given.
The sound of horses behind him made Raynar turn. Coming through the track were several riders each leading spare horses. In the lead was Hereward.
"Sire," Hereward ignored Raynar and faced Edwin, "the king sends his compliments and reminds you to stay out of the shield wall. If it goes badly here, you are to use these horses and return to his banner immediately. He says he cannot afford to lose you in a side battle."
"What else?" asked Edwin.
"Our plan is working, though not perfectly. A relief column of about a thousand Norse from the ships have arrived. They have force marched up the Derwent and have come to the battle already tired. By now the ships should be under attack by your brother Morcar and his Northumbrian ships.
The arrival of the relief column has changed the battle. We have pulled our south wing back as the new Norse column arrived so that they would be caught between the high ground and the new Norse.
The sight of the column gave heart to the Norse that were defending the bottom of the hill and they have surged forward. They are pushing our main shield wall back towards the river. This has heartened the Norse on the hill and they are leaving the crown and the crest of this hill and are moving down to the valley floor to support their men there. Tostig is the one rallying them so we think that Harald may have been injured."
Edwin held up his hand. "Let me guess. Since the Norse on the hill are moving down towards the valley anyway, the king wants me to push them on their way, and then hold the hill so they can't have it back."
"You guess well," replied Hereward. "It is a good plan, and your men would be safer on the hill than down in the valley. In the center of the valley there is much slaughter on both sides. In any case, the timing is yours but don't wait too long. You know how walls move better than I, but the king also used the word 'push', not fight, not kill. He wants you to push them off the crest of the hill and then don't let them back up.
Earlier in the battle he watched some of our archers cause avalanches of men down the slope, and he wants that again, but along the entire crest of the hill. He has sent his personal reserve south to come in behind the new Norse column. When he sees an avalanche on the hill he will give the order to squeeze the Nor
se together. That will be the finish of them, and few will escape."
Edwin nodded, "Thank you, Hereward. Have your men tie up the horses and leave a guard with them. Send a rider back to Harold that the avalanche should be starting as he receives the message." Edwin turned and headed towards his men. The skirmishers watched him walk along the line of shieldmen giving orders as he went.
Hereward spun around from watching Edwin. "Osmund, you heard Edwin. Go and drink some of the king's wine." He then put an arm each around Wylie and Raynar. "I feared you dead. Two of those spare horses are your empty saddles. I knew Raynar’s by his shepherd's crook.
I was with the king when the archers tried to hold the hill. I knew you were with those archers. It had all the signs of careless youth. The king sent me to rally the rest of the mounted archers to support you, but by the time we had crossed the bridge, the Norse had already reached the crest."
Hereward moved towards the last cover before the end of the wood and gathered the skirmishers to him. "When our shield men charge, you stay out of the fray. It will be heavy infantry work and you lot have no armour or shields. We will follow at a hundred paces and pour our arrows into any pockets of Norse resistance." And that is what they did.
Edwin’s men, without their usual yells and screams, and shield-thumping, charged at full speed at the Norse who were lined upon the crest looking down at the Norse surge in the valley. Edwin’s thousand men hit shield to shield with the Norse and then dug in their feet and pushed. At times there were two men behind a shield pushing with all their strength.
Due to the shape of the ridge, it was harder to do the pushing on the higher north crest of the hill, so Hereward had his skirmisher focused their arrows on that end of the Norse line. Edwin, under orders not to be in the shield wall, rode back and forth along the line shouting at the English to go no further than the crest and to form a wall on the crest. He kept yelling and yelling not to follow the Norse down the hill. Within a half an hour Edwin's Mercians had won the high ground.
Hereward look around and signaled his men to him. Raynar and Wylie ignored him. They were peering down the north side of the slope. They ignored him again, so he trotted over to them and the other skirmishers followed him. He was within a stone's throw when he heard Raynar scream, "Bastards!" and start running down the slope, nocking and loosing as he ran.
Wyle chased after him and also started shooting. Hereward and the rest did not need to know the reason. A skirmisher was charging and shooting, that was enough to tell them it was serious. Hereward reached the spot where Raynar had begun, and then he saw.
Below him were lines of prisoners. The prisoners each had both hands tied to a long rope. There were about fifty prisoners to a line. The Norse were walking down each line slitting throats. Raynar and Wylie were running towards the furthest line, a line of women. Half the women in that line were already slumped on the ground. As one Norse held the next woman in line from behind, the other pushed her head forward and began his knife slash. He was lifted off his feet by the arrow that hit his chest. The other man looked down at the writhing body of his mate and seemed to be frozen in place until the next arrow pinned his upper arm to his ribs.
Hereward gave the order. "Each of you pick a line, and kill the bastard guards." The men stopped running and stilled so that they could mark their targets. The arrows hissed and the Norse were falling, then all the guards saw the skirmishers and began running away down the slope.
Raynar slung his bow and whisked out his thin short sword. The long ropes were knotted to a log post at each end. Raynar did not know this blade. The Syrian steel looked too thin to be of use against another sword, but it slashed through that thick ship's rope as if it were cheese.
There was no time to release each prisoner. The executioners who had escaped the volley of. arrows were yelling to get the attention of the rest of the walking wounded. One by one the wounded were turning away from watching the battle for the valley and looking towards the prisoners.
Raynar cut the big rope away from the post, and then ran down the line of women to the closest dead body and cut the thick rope at that point. "Run!" he shouted, and pointed up the slope to the gully and the woods. "Run to the woods and wait for the rest!"
The women moved slowly. Their bodies were sore from abuse, and if one stumbled, the tug on the rope caused others to fall. "Get moving, work together, get moving!" Raynar yelled in frustration. "Save yourselves! Oh, please save yourselves!"
Wylie had followed Raynar’s lead and was cutting the thick rope of the next line of women.
Raynar looked up the slope and could see the other skirmishers working at freeing the hands of the closest men. Of course, once the men were freed, they can save the women. Once freed, the first of the prisoners searched the fallen Norse for blades, and started freeing other men.
By the time Raynar and Wylie had the four strings of women loose, and crawling up the slope, help was on its way. The slow stumble up the slope became a walk and then a trot as more and more hands were cut free of the ship's rope. By the time the prisoners made the gully, the thick ropes were left behind on the ground.
Raynar heard a warning from what sounded like Hereward's voice, so he turned. A mass of the walking wounded, armed with swords and daggers, but no shields, was closing in on him. Raynar and Wylie dragged the last of the slower women up the slope until they had reached the start of the gully.
Hereward and most of the skirmishers joined them there, and they spread out in a line across the mouth of the gully. It only took one salvo of targeted arrows to stop the mob of walking wounded in their tracks. The next salvo had them running back down the slope and out of range.
The skirmishers stood in line in that place until a man waved to them from the crest of the hill behind them and then signaled that the prisoners were all safe in the trees. The skirmishers joined them in the trees, and after a short rest, led them down the newly stomped road through the woods and into a clearing away from the battle.
Hereward and his men could find only five of their horses tied up in the shade where they had left them. The guard explained that Edwin's bodyguard had taken the rest. They could not afford to load the few horses left to them with the weakest of the prisoners, in case they met some fleeing Norse. Five skirmishers climbed into the saddles instead.
Some of the stronger prisoners carried the weakest of the women on their backs. Some were husbands and wives, some were sisters and brothers. There were about three hundred and fifty prisoners still alive, and the skirmishers guarded them on their slow walk to the Street, and along the street and across the ford towards York.
As the skirmishers crossed the ford a mounted courier carrying a message from Edwin to the king pulled up for a moment, and told them that the battle had turned again. The Norse had been squeezed into a smaller and smaller circle at the foot of the hill, and the end was near.
Walking through the ford, Raynar could not look from side to side. The smell of blood and offal brought his stomach into his throat. The river bank, the rocks, the grass, even the mud were dark red with drying blood. The dead of both armies had been piled along the bank to clear the way for traffic across the ford.
The army's scavengers were already gleaning the weapons and armour and arrows. As they loaded carts, they were separating that which was scrap for the forge, from that which needed repair, and from that which could be reissued immediately.
Raynar saw one of the abbey's carts piled high with bloody metal. "I wonder what the good brother would say if he saw that," he whispered to himself as he tried not to step in a bloody pool.
On the York side of the ford there was a guard on the street near the corner of the ridge. The guard was at the very spot that he and Hereward had crossed the street on the scouting mission. An aide came high-stepping down from the ridge, waving his hands to be noticed. "The hostages can't be returned to York yet, have them sit over there in the hollow and I will have food and ale brought to them."
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nbsp; "I was expecting this," Hereward said to Raynar. "The king will want for himself the tribute promised by York to the Norse. These poor folk are still hostages to a king, just a different king."
Raynar looked at him with dismay, and then refocused his eyes and looked over Hereward’s shoulder. A rage came to his face. Raynar started walking fast towards a group of the street's guards. They were hovering around some ragged young women, whose tattered clothes were no longer a modest cover for their bruised bodies. Hereward signaled to two of the skirmishers to intercept Raynar, but they were too late in understanding the signal.
Raynar nocked an arrow and pointed it at the face of the serjeant of the guards. Raynar’s voice hissed with venom. "If any men. And I mean any men, molest any of these women before they are home with their kin, then I will hunt you down, serjeant, and put an arrow through your face."
The serjeant pulled his hand away from the breast he was groping, and winked at the other guards.
"Not them. You," hissed Raynar, "I won't remember their faces, but I will remember yours. And you will be very dead. You can be sure of that."