by Jason Born
All at once I saw vague forms, blobs of dark masses, really.
We crashed into that mass like a slow moving wave tumbles over the rocks on the shore. They stood firm with their shields raised. They were the solid earth. We flowed, or perhaps, melted, acting as the water. Our momentum fled. We were halted.
There were several moments when no one swung a weapon, be it a spear or a sword or an axe. We shoved one another, shield against shield. My old piece of timber was pressed against an Englishman’s bark. The man was a head shorter than me. Everyone was shorter than me back then, though I think a shriveled woman aged fifty is probably larger than me today. I know that I held my spear at bay. My tarnished sword hung harmlessly at my waist, my father’s saex securely next to it. What I did that morning in the fog was push.
I rammed my shield again and again into my opponent. He repeated the favor, staring up angrily through wide green eyes. The Englishman spat curses. I didn’t know what he said, but they were curses, probably the same as the ones I hurled in his face. “You filthy stinking shit! I’ll wipe you from this beach like I scrape a dog’s waste from my boot.”
It was as if the morning fog had made both sides tepid. The English had been willing to launch projectiles into the mist, but once our faces were a nose’s distance from their own, they lost their will. In fairness, we seemed to have experienced the same. Godfrey pressed his shield against the shields of two men. The king was not a man of great size, but his zeal more than made up for it. Smaller yet was Killian. The priest held a shield just like the rest of us. He swore a string of curses in his native tongue for which I’m sure he would have to beg forgiveness from his One True God. Turf Ear screamed. He could probably only hear the loudest of the Englishmen’s jeering. The Welshmen shouted and pushed. It was an entirely impotent struggle.
The king was jostling with an Englishman who was as stout as a bear. Then Godfrey lost his footing on the slick, loose stones of the shingle. His feet slid backward and he fell to his knees. Godfrey used the edge of his great round shield to stop his progress before his chest slapped into the ground. The big Englishman tipped forward onto the king and began fumbling with his spear in order to ram it into the Godfrey’s exposed back.
The time for nervous posturing had ended. It was like when the drums hummed at a celebration around the bonfire during Winternights. As soon as the jarl strode to the speaking rock, the musicians all understood that it was time for their riotous noise to cease. They would halt their pounding at once so that a solid two heartbeats of dead silence passed before the jarl’s powerful words rang true.
Both sides of the contest on the shingle that morning halted all movement when the king and large enemy warrior toppled together. For two lumbering heartbeats we turned our attention to the only spot that showed action. The king and the Englishman grappled. Even men at the end of the line, far out of sight of the king, sensed a change and stayed their hands. They stopped their thrusting as they peered toward the center.
The pressure against my shield ebbed. My mind calculated a hundred possibilities of what to do, but truly only one viable idea came to mind. I knew only that the shield wall and its cohesion were all important. The shield wall, intact, meant life. The shield wall, with a gap, meant certain death. Ours had a gap in it that morning, a crack that could allow the flood waters of growling Englishmen to pour through and hack us from the rear. Our knees would buckle. Our heads would be lost.
With quick ferociousness, I clutched the shaft of my spear, turned, and plunged the head into the stout Englishman’s neck. Blood ran down onto the king’s back. The English warrior clawed and kicked at the stones for a moment before he became still, moaning. I jerked the spear back out and was rewarded with a spray of the man’s crimson. Still holding my spear, I slapped my hand on his back and lifted him off my king. I threw his large body back to its place in their line. Godfrey jumped to his feet, instantly ready.
Only one heartbeat of silence passed this time. It was not lumbering.
The English saw their fallen comrade and reacted as all men would. They hefted their spears, stepped forward, and stabbed over the tops of their shields. More blood. This time it was ours. Cheeks were scraped. Eyes were lost, mouths left with permanent gaping holes.
We answered back with interlocking shields.
I felt a sudden breeze blow in from the sea behind me. It was an omen to be sure. We were fearsome warriors who emerged from the depths, to come ashore and wreak whatever havoc we would. Behind us, in proof that ours was a just cause, the eagle that perched itself on the topmost branches of the Yggdrasil tree was beating his wings, sending wind into the billowing sails of our hearts, of our side of the battle. Figurative, perhaps, but that’s the way I felt that morning when my long blonde hair was lifted off my back by the rush of air. The fog, too, was pushed, inch by creeping inch, away from the sea.
A spear glanced off my helmet, ringing my head. I was suddenly angry and indignant. I crouched low under my shield and heaved upward sending the enemy scrambling back on his feet as he fought to retain his balance. I reached into the gap and cut a man’s sword-hand badly. He recoiled.
How easy life is in the shield wall. You lock with your fellow raiders. You fight with discipline in short quick stabs and, in time, you pry the enemy apart. They fall by ones as more fissures form. They fall by twos as your men lever their way in. Then the enemy dies, all of them. It’s as sure as the morning sun.
If you believe all that, you know nothing. You’ve experienced nothing of worth. And that saddens me.
Perhaps you are a woman, a nun, instructed in the art of reading. It would make sense that you have no knowledge of life and mostly death in the shield wall. I was married to a former nun for a rather brilliant time. She had a tenacious mind, understanding concepts of kings and queens for which I cared nothing. So my wife, the former nun, wasn’t foolish or daft or stupid. She was quick-witted and intelligent. Yet with all her experience in the harsh, cruel world, with all her reading of the words of the One God, she understood nothing about the shield wall.
Of more concern to me is that you are a man, so-called, and do not understand the shield wall. A part of me applauds your chance to grow to a mature age and be so fortunate to have lived in a grand time of peace that you never had to stand in the thick line. However, I know the minds of man. He is completely serene when the harvests are good, when his wife is fertile, when his children live. Bring the rot to his barley, bring a few stillborn children from his wife’s womb, or kill some of his already living children with a pestilence or a surly horse’s hoof and that same calm man’s thoughts change. Consolidate power into that same man’s hands as in a king, jarl, or raider and that quiet, nonviolent man becomes a terror, forcing his beneficial will onto all in his path with the utmost vigor. What I am saying is that your peaceful time is an illusion. You may not have had to stand in the shield wall, but your sons will. And your sons will vomit blood and shit their trousers if you’ve taught them nothing of the shield wall.
Let me explain that the shield wall is not glamorous. It is not complicated. It is insanity and madness. It is brute strength, nothing more. It is unrelenting pounding. I’ve smelled more human waste in the shield wall than in all the times I had to empty the longhouse dung bucket as a youth. The shield wall will allow the side that understands it and employs it victory in an even contest. The shield wall can assure triumph if the side that uses it is greater in numbers. The shield wall can even tip the scales when the side that uses it is outnumbered by as much as two to one. It is effective, not elegant. Men on both sides are filleted open. The side that properly utilizes the wall should lose fewer of its precious soldiers. It is as simple as that.
The fog was quickly being dispersed by that breeze that I had thought was a sign from the old gods. I was a fool. What was revealed by the faint sunlight that was trying ever so hard to burn its way through was that the English lines were growing. They already outnumbered us. I didn’t care to h
azard a guess, but theirs was some multiple of our force. The last of their stragglers were running down a sweeping slope from the town’s garrison to join in the fray.
There was no doubt in my mind at that point. We had found Watchet. And the English troops that were to reinforce the mint in the coming days had already arrived.
. . .
“Shove them back into the dung hole from which they came!” called Godfrey. The king used his sword to cut a man across his knuckles. It wasn’t life threatening. However, it did cause his opponent to drop his weapon and bend to retrieve it. Godfrey kicked the man’s awkwardly hoisted shield with the bottom of his foot. It danced upward just long enough for the king to flick the tip of his sword into the man’s exposed armpit. The Englishman fell sideways. Leif finished him with a swift kick in the face and hack at his neck with a sword.
Two English nobles rode behind the enemy’s lines. One of them, who appeared to be a thegn, was reorganizing his troops now that we could see more of each other. He rode a spirited charger that eagerly danced on the rolling stones of the beach. The beast’s hooves stomped and padded back and forth while its rider stood tall in the saddle screaming in his native tongue.
I cocked my arm and launched my spear over the burgeoning English line. It cracked the thegn square on his helmet so that his head flapped over. The helm toppled off to the ground while the rider fought to stay on his horse. He gripped the horse’s barrel with his legs and pulled himself upright with the reins. The horse whipped its snout, blowing out bursts of air into the fading mist.
The thegn scanned his enemy – us – and saw me towering above the rest, staring back. I must give him his credit. He didn’t scamper down to recover his armor. No, his lips curled like an angry she-wolf and he kicked his already agitated charger. He came up behind the line that was increasingly filling with fallen bodies and spattering blood. Then the thegn commenced shouting and pointing at me. I, of course, didn’t know what he said at the time. Since that day I’ve learned many languages, English among them. I can relay his words to you now only because Killian laughed and laughed about them later.
The English thegn stabbed a sword in my direction, shouting, “I am Goda, a mighty lord of Devon, servant of Aethelred who is King of England. You,” and this part made even Godfrey laugh because despite my tarnished armor and tarnished sword, this Goda mistook me for the leader of our band, “and your miscreants may wash ashore like weeds from the sea left behind by the tide. We’ll do what we always do to the refuse that lines our beaches. We’ll chop you up and cook you. I myself will hew you and baste you and serve you to my whelps.” Now before you believe that the English were cannibals, let me assure you that this man, Goda, was sufficiently lathered with anger that I believe he could have said anything. I don’t believe he meant to eat us, though.
His words were enough to further encourage his men, not that they needed any. We had already retreated nearly back to the docks. Several dozen of our number had fallen. Turf Ear’s entire left side was limp. It was drenched in his blood which poured from twin gashes near his neck. His left arm was dangling straight down, holding his shield that dragged a path through the rocks. Still Turf Ear guarded the far left of our line. He clumsily swung his great sword at any of the score of English who tried to turn our flank. It was frightening to think that an old, wounded, near deaf man was all that prevented our line being turned. But looking back I think it was the best we could have hoped for at the time. Turf Ear cut another man down. He inched back. Turf Ear stabbed a man. He inched toward the docks.
Goda was still frothing with anger. His rage boiled so, that he needed to share it. He turned it on other men. Then Goda returned to me, directing all manners of vitriol like one well-aimed arrow after another.
The other noble, of higher rank, maybe even Strenwald, the earl of whom Godfrey had heard, rode back and forth holding his reins and nothing else. He hoisted no shield. The earl held no spear, no sword. He seemed confident as if victory was a foregone conclusion.
And it was. Or, I should say that it would have been had the One God not been with the two chief participants from our side of the battle. It would bring my heart pleasure to say that it was Thor, then my god of thunder, who propelled us to victory. It wasn’t. It wasn’t the eagle’s wings bringing the wind. It wasn’t Thor pounding out rolling thunder with his mjolnir. I knew this then as I know it now. It was the One God, for it was two of his followers who led us to victory.
The first, at least partial, follower was King Godfrey. The One God must have been ever forgiving of Godfrey’s attempts to divine the future by casting lots rather than praying to Him. The True God forgave the king for sometimes falling back to the old gods. Maybe it was the king’s frequent and usually generous donations to Killian’s church on Man. Maybe Godfrey knew how to pray for that forgiveness with enough confidence to deserve it. Or, maybe Killian and the other priests I’ve met over the years are right and the One True God wants nothing more than to forgive all of us our transgressions. I hope that is the case, for mine are many. God was with King Godfrey as he hacked Englishmen that morning.
The second person with whom the One God was with at Watchet was Aoife. I had nearly forgotten about her and the mission on which I sent her. My mind was in the battle, my tongue was thirsty for English blood, my limbs worked on their own volition to parry blows and slice opponents before being directed by my head to the next threat. Goda was screaming. He grew louder as our band grew smaller, huddling more tightly behind an ever-shrinking shield wall. We were going to be pushed back to the docks. We were going to lose the ships we had just stolen and the treasure they carried. In spite of the chaos and my confusion, Aoife didn’t forget her duty.
I felt a sharp pain in my back and spun to chop down whoever had just poked me. Aoife stood back there holding a bundle of spears. She’d used the butt of one of them to ram my back and get my attention. “I should cut you!” I spat as I turned around to face the menacing English.
Aoife rammed harder. Without looking back, I swatted at the spear shaft with an elbow.
“Damn you, Halldorr!” Aoife cried as she held up an arm to stop my swing. “Use these spears until you kill that screaming fool on the horse. I retrieved them from Leif’s ship.”
We were going to be dead soon. The English were tightening the noose. The girl had a point. I decided to take a dead thegn as a prize as my little Valkyrie led me to Valhalla. I slid my bloody sword into its cracked scabbard. Bubbling crimson spurt out the sheath’s mouth. “Spear,” I commanded, holding out an open palm toward Aoife. “You didn’t find the other ship?”
I turned to face the battle. Godfrey and Leif had slid together to cover the hole in the shield wall I had left. They stabbed and cut the numerous English who were bent on killing them. I let loose the spear at Goda who had again moved away. It tore at the strong mail that covered his back. The chain was sturdy and held as the spear bounced away, but Goda was pushed forward in his saddle from the force of the blow. He turned to face me at the same time I turned to get another spear.
“No, I found the ship and her crew,” Aoife said as she handed me another spear.
“Then where in Thor’s beard are they?” I asked.
“They are where they are needed,” she began.
“They’re needed here!”
“Shut up and kill that noble. We’ll see if the hearts of the English melt when they see a leader fall.”
I cursed the nymph and spun to see that Goda was still on his horse, closing in. Earl Strenwald had ridden next to him and now both were freely calling to their men, sensing impending victory. I cocked my arm for the third time that day and launched the spear at Goda.
All at once his shouting stopped. My spear tore into his upraised chin. The steel head was driven so deep that only the wooden shaft could be seen. It was quickly covered in a river of blood. Goda’s charger sensed its master’s trouble. It felt the easing of the reins and weakening of Goda’s knees. The beast
smelled his owner’s blood. The horse panicked and reared so that Goda’s dead body fell with a thud to the shingle, dashing sea-worn stones to the side.
Strenwald, who I guessed was a competent commander, took the death of his second in stride. He reached for the bucking horse’s reins. I heard Strenwald call soothing words to the energetic charger, trusting that his soldiers would wipe up the rest of our pathetic lot without his constant vigilance.
Bells, large, deep, peeling bells severed the mist. Strenwald furrowed his brow and spun in his saddle to look back to the town and the source of the noise. He’d instantly forgotten about Goda’s wild horse.
I looked up at the town, too. The breeze had been blowing. The sun had begun its baking of the vapor. What was a moment ago beginning to form into visible images of a few homes, shops, and even a small stone garrison had receded into a black fog. The mist was enshrouding it again, darker.
Then I smelled it. Goda’s beast smelled it an instant before. And it was too much for the animal’s heightened awareness to take. It kicked its rear hooves into the air a half dozen times, landing each time on Goda, tearing his flesh. Then the warhorse reared, pawing at the air with its shod feet. Each time it crashed back down it crushed one of the Englishmen fighting in the line. At last, the beast ran away down the beach, kicking and scattering any English in its path.
It wasn’t the fog that was rolling back in. The beast knew it before the men. It was smoke. The entire town was burning and the churches were ringing their bells in warning.
“I’d shout ‘attack’ if I were you, Godfrey,” called Aoife.
The surprised king and the rest of us on the beach looked up toward the blazing town. It puked smoke. Coming down out of the black vomit was the missing crew, fresh, unharmed. They carried shields high and tight. They bristled with spears. Randulfr stood strong at the center. Aoife had been right. They were just where they needed to be.