Hereward 02 - The Devil's Army

by James Wilde

  She broke the embrace and snatched his hand, urging, ‘Come. All is ready.’ He had to all but run to keep up with her as she dragged him playfully towards the castle. Once through the door, her mood grew more serious.

  ‘They are waiting?’ he whispered.

  She nodded. ‘I have told them all about you,’ she murmured.

  As they moved to the steps, he passed a Viking with hair and beard dyed blood-red, somewhat familiar, his eyes like black holes in his skull. Redwald shivered as he climbed to the first floor, convinced he could feel the man’s cold gaze upon his back.

  Edoma stepped into the chamber first, her hands clasped behind her back and her head bowed in deference. But he saw her eyes flash coquettishly; she could not help herself. ‘He is here,’ she announced to the room. ‘Redwald, brother of Hereward.’

  ‘But not by blood,’ he said as he stepped in. The Butcher and William de Warenne stood by the hearth with cups of wine in hand. Another man waited in the corner of the room, on the edge of his vision. Redwald was shocked to see it was Asketil, and for a moment he wondered if he had been lured into a trap.

  But then the old man softened his stern expression and walked over to embrace his adopted son. ‘No, you are not of my blood,’ he said quietly, ‘but would that you were.’

  Redwald could see that Asketil was no captive. He carried himself with the confidence of a man who walked his own land, just as Hereward had said. Yet why the grey-haired thegn stood alongside the men who had stolen all he had would have to remain a mystery for now, he knew. He had his own game to play and it was a dangerous one. As Asketil broke the embrace, Redwald looked back to the Butcher. He saw no kindness in the Norman commander’s face. Here was a man who would not respond to pleas, only strength. He had judged the situation well.

  ‘There is no hope for the English,’ he said, looking from the Butcher to William. ‘Hereward will lead them to their doom. His battle-lust has hollowed him out. Blood is all he wants, and death. All reason has fled.’

  Asketil nodded. ‘No more would I have expected.’

  ‘I would ask forgiveness of the king … of all of you … for the crimes I have committed against you in my ignorance,’ he continued. ‘And I would ask a chance to make amends.’ He bowed his head, feigning respect. He had wagered his own life in coming here, he knew it. Yet being bold was the only way to gain high reward.

  The Butcher swilled his wine, his cold stare seeming to suggest he would happily snap Redwald’s neck with his bare hands. After a moment, he shifted his gaze to Edoma. ‘You believe there is some value in this dog?’

  ‘I do,’ she replied. ‘I know him well.’

  ‘And you, Asketil. You speak for him?’ Taillebois enquired.

  ‘He is the son I should have had. Let him earn your mercy and you will find no man more worthy of your trust in all Mercia.’

  William de Warenne poured himself another cup of wine. ‘And how will you earn this mercy?’

  ‘I am here to swear an oath to the king,’ Redwald said in a confident voice that commanded attention. ‘I will tell all I know of the English in Ely and I will join the fight against them, if you need me. I would spill my blood for the king.’

  ‘And you will spill the blood of ones you once called “brother”?’ the Butcher asked. Redwald heard a note of contempt in the commander’s voice. He cared little. Soon he would have passed Taillebois by and the Norman would be bowing and scraping to him.

  ‘I will do whatever the king wishes,’ he replied, holding the man’s gaze.

  ‘And why should we trust you?’ William enquired, sipping on his wine. ‘Hereward has shown he is cunning. Setting his own eyes and ears among us would not be beyond him.’

  ‘I have already slain Edwin of Mercia, an enemy of the crown. But I prove that I am worthy with this.’ Redwald bent down and slowly and deliberately opened the sack. Such a foul stench flooded out that all there recoiled. With a gentle shake of his wrist, he emptied the sticky, blackened contents on to the floor. Edoma cried out, her hand flying to her mouth.

  Redwald nodded. ‘I bring you the head of Hereward’s beloved wife.’

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  MILKY STRANDS OF mist rolled through the hollows of the forest. Moisture dropped in a steady beat from the high branches where the leaves glowed gold and brown and red in shafts of late autumn sunlight. Still, it was, that early morn with only the hungry cries of roosting rooks to disturb the peace. Hidden beneath the blanket of fern, the Norman force waited, unseen by any who might pass.

  Harald Redteeth lay on his belly on the spongy leaf-mould and cocked his head. In that vast, near-impassable forest, he could hear the whispers of the alfar more clearly than anywhere else this side of the great black sea. They were uneasy, those restless spirits of tree and leaf. They smelled blood. Aye, and blood there would be, an ocean of it if the Normans had their way.

  Under the fronds beside him, the Butcher lay. His face was as cold as ever. No smirk, no sign at all that the victory he had long desired lay within his grasp. ‘Hark,’ the commander growled. ‘They come.’

  Redteeth pushed the warnings of the alfar to one side and listened. The dim sound of hoofbeats rumbled through the ground. The chink of mail carried on the breeze and the tread of many feet. He folded his fingers around the haft of his axe, Grim, and readied himself for glorious battle. At his back, he could feel the weight of Ivar the Grey’s gaze and he murmured, ‘Not now, brother. Soon.’

  The Butcher jerked his head around and glanced at him as if he were mad. ‘Quiet,’ he snapped in a low voice. ‘Would you give us away, you fool?’

  Harald gave a gap-toothed grin, resolving to plant his axe in the commander’s head when the time was right. He felt the urge to whistle a jaunty tune and with a great struggle restrained himself.

  The sound of the approaching army grew steadily louder. Did he suspect his days were short, this Morcar, who once had all Northumbria at his feet and now ran from the king’s wrath? The Viking pushed aside a handful of fronds and peered down the slope into the deep hollow where the mist swirled around the lower trunks of the ash trees. Taillebois had planned the attack well, he would give him that. Once in that natural bowl, they would find their easy escape routes cut off. Surrounded by an army with the advantage of high ground, they would feel the fire of battle lit beneath them and they would stew in their own juices.

  ‘Hold until I give the order,’ the Butcher commanded.

  Harald heard the words passed on from man to man hidden in the undergrowth until they faded away beneath the sound of dripping dew and rustling leaves. Harald grinned again, to himself this time. First Morcar would be slain, and then, once the last hope of building an English army had been snatched away, he would ride with the Normans to Ely, and Hereward, and the vengeance he had long desired. He thought back to the previous night when Taillebois had addressed his men in the bailey at Lincylene. One small group had been sent to lure Hereward and his army out to the northern fens. By the time the rebels returned home, every Norman soldier in the east would be waiting for them, a wall of iron cutting them off from their safe haven in Ely.

  The column of men trudged into the hollow. Redteeth squinted, taking in the hunched shoulders and bowed heads, the shambling gait, the spears used as staffs to help them along. They were weary, from too many days of running and hiding as they picked a winding path to Ely to avoid the Norman scouts that crisscrossed the region. Little did these men know they had long since been found and their road identified.

  The Butcher pushed himself up on his arms, watching his prey move further into his trap. Harald lifted his axe, ready to move. Taillebois nodded to himself, satisfied there was no going back for the enemy. He thrust himself up and yelled, ‘Dex aie!’, God aid us!, the battle-cry of his homeland.

  As one the Norman army rose up from the fern. ‘Dex aie!’ thundered from every lip.

  Redteeth watched shock light on the faces of the exhausted English as he hurled himself do
wn the slope. Around the vast circle of the hollow, the entirety of the king’s men assigned to the fens began to move, a wave of iron about to break on the enemy army. Horses reared up. Cries of fear rang out. Men at the front of the column tried to press back. The warriors behind them moved too slowly and blocked their path. They milled around, clattering shields and tangling spears. Confusion reigned. Someone yelled out to form a shield wall – Morcar, the Viking guessed. Too late. The Normans would be upon them before any order could be found.

  Harald Redteeth gritted his teeth. His feet pounded down the steep slope. He was afire, his blood thundering through his head, his axe in hand. This would be a fine slaughter. The English stood no chance.

  All around the hollow, a storm of battle swept as the two sides clashed. The thunder of axes upon shields boomed out, and a cacophony of battle-cries and screams. The Viking threw back his head and laughed as he ran.

  Mist swept around the legs of a young English warrior as he fought his way out of the morass of his brothers. His eyes widened in terror when he saw Harald, and he levelled his spear, his shield juddering as he bumped it up his body. He could not have been more than fifteen summers, Harald thought, but if he was old enough to fight, he was old enough to die.

  The Viking thrashed his axe down with such force the round shield almost split in two. The lad staggered back in shock. Gamely, he thrust his spear. Redteeth smashed it aside with his weapon and, without slowing, slammed his shoulder into his opponent. The English warrior went down on his back, his shattered shield spinning away. Harald loomed over him. The boy knew his days were gone, but he did not beg or cry. The Viking liked that. ‘I give you a glorious death,’ he said, swinging his axe high.

  At his back, a roar resounded, so loud it sounded like the awakening of a giant. Redteeth wrenched his head round, his axe wavering.

  Around the entire rim of the hollow, pale figures emerged like ghosts from the glow of sunlight filtering through the autumnal canopy. Ash-streaked, bodies black with the mud of the fens, their shields painted grey and brown, the better to hide them among leaf and wood. The Devil’s Army.

  The Viking heard his victim scramble away. He cared little. All around the sounds of battle had died away as if the Normans and Morcar’s men held their breath. Harald turned slowly, surveying this new army. Hereward must have brought every man of fighting age that he had, leaving Ely undefended. He risked everything on this coming battle. Redteeth gave a grim smile. How clever Hereward was, cleverer by far than the Norman bastards. They had set a trap, and a better trap had been set for them in turn. Now they were caught between two hammers.

  He shook his axe furiously and roared, ‘Come, then. Let us bathe in blood and die like men.’

  A moment of silence filled the forest as the echoes of his words died away. Then the English crashed their weapons against their shields, and the spectral forms swept down the slopes.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  ‘KILL THEM ALL,’ Hereward bellowed. ‘Leave no man standing.’ The ashes crusting his face hid the depths of his cold fury. Through the waves of fern he bounded, and down the steep slope towards the king’s men. His men thundered in his wake, but Hereward only had eyes for the Norman bastards. He grinned when he saw the flicker of fear on those graven faces.

  Confusion swelled in the Norman king’s army. As he ran, Hereward glimpsed Morcar’s men fighting back with renewed vigour now they saw they were not alone. The Normans were torn, with enemies on both sides. Whichever way they turned they would show their backs to a foe.

  A wall of the long Norman shields rose up before him. Emerald, scarlet, ochre, dragons, griffins, the Holy Cross, a barrier of vibrant colour that belied the grim men of iron that stood behind it. Hereward swung his axe high, focusing on one set of eyes peering over a shield’s rim. Brainbiter would be no good in this fight. One wrong angle and the blade might shatter against the strong Norman mail. But the axe, that could hack through anything with the right arm behind it.

  For a moment, he felt suspended in glory. A halo of sunlight ringed his vision and all the sounds of battle, all the cries of fury and agony, the pounding of feet and the clash of weapon upon shield, all of it seemed to rush away. The world slowed. Each beat of his heart boomed in his head. The fire in his gut licked up. Blood, that was all he wanted, enough blood to wash away the misery that had stained his life. Those cold eyes held his, growing larger and larger still.

  And then the moment broke.

  The wave of English crashed upon the Norman rocks. Never slowing a step, Hereward leapt the last few paces and swung his axe down. His opponent raised his shield and the blade smashed through the rim. As Hereward wrenched his weapon free, the king’s man thrust with his double-edged sword. Too clumsy, Hereward thought, and too easy to predict. He slid around the blade and brought his axe down in a short, furious blow. Hand and sword both fell away in a gout of blood. His enemy’s scream was lost behind the rolling thunder of battle.

  Off-balance in his agony, the Norman staggered back a step. Hereward rammed his shoulder against the shield, pitching the warrior further back. In an instant, he was through the shield wall. He hacked his axe into the neck of the warrior to his left. Before the cry had left his victim’s lips, the Mercian lashed the weapon into the shoulder blade of the fighting man on his right.

  And then he felt the battle-madness sweep through him. As he whirled, all he could see were flashes of faces and barbs of sunlight reflected off helms. His axe cut high, then low, never ceasing in its flight. Mail burst, flesh parted, bone shattered, gore flowed. Bodies crashed to the ground like trees before the woodcutter. The boom of the blood in his head sounded like waves against a ship’s hull. Faces came and went. He thought he saw his father there, and Redwald, but each time their features blurred into those of one of the king’s men screaming in his death-throes.

  Underfoot, the ground churned into a soup of blood and mud and piss and shit. His nostrils wrinkled at the death-reek. As he realized he had carved a space about him covered with the fallen, the battle-madness began to recede. He looked around with clear eyes. It was a slaughter.

  A hand caught his arm and he whirled. It was Guthrinc. ‘Too many of our men die,’ he yelled. Hereward knew who he meant, the fresh ones, who had never lifted a weapon before they appeared in the camp.

  ‘They came to Ely to give their lives for our fight. This day they make that gift.’

  He cast his eyes over the seething battle, spears tearing high and low against the shields of the king’s men. English warriors were falling everywhere as Norman spears, axes and swords thrust back. He glimpsed the faces of men whose names he had not yet had time to learn, some who had only arrived in Ely the previous day. Long had he resisted sending them into the horrors of battle too soon, but now he had no choice. The outcome of this day would decide the course of this war. The lives of every man in Ely were only part of the huge stake he had gambled.

  ‘We will win,’ he shouted defiantly. ‘See – our enemy has been cut back to a half of their number. Soon they will be overwhelmed.’

  ‘But at what cost?’ Guthrinc yelled, racing back towards the fighting. The towering English warrior thrust his spear over the top of a Norman shield and into the man’s face. Beside him, Kraki roared a battle-cry as he swung his axe down. For a moment, Hereward glanced back up the slope to where the lone figure of Alric observed the battle. Would he win this day and lose every friend he had? If that were the price he paid, so be it. He had stood alone before.

  He turned again to the battle and cried, ‘Fall back.’ At his command, his men rushed back up the slope as they had been ordered before they left Ely the previous night. The Normans stared in incomprehension. Hereward grinned as the crack of bowstrings echoed across the hollow. Arrows rained down on the Normans. Over the top of the shields the shafts flew, plunging into eyes, ramming through mail into chests and arms. The cries became a chorus. He had his rats in a barrel and he would slaughter them one by one. After a
second volley had been loosed, he shouted, ‘Attack.’ His archers fell back and the spearmen rushed forward.

  His archers could only be used sparingly for fear of hitting too many of Morcar’s men, but as he looked across the bottom of the hollow he saw they had done their work. The tight ranks of the enemy had been fractured. Into the gaps, the English flooded. It was the beginning of the end.

  Hereward felt a rush of euphoria. He raced back to the fighting and hurled himself into the line beside Kraki. ‘Come now when I have done all the hard work,’ the Viking grumbled.

  Hereward swung his axe down with such force it cleaved a helm and skull near in two. As his enemy fell away, he looked across the sea of men and locked eyes with Harald Redteeth. The red-bearded Viking was laughing like a madman as he hacked right and left with his axe. Hereward grimaced and began to carve his way through the king’s men towards the mad Northman who had killed his friend Vadir.

  Barely had he advanced a foot, when his senses prickled. Through the swirl of battle, he glimpsed Ivo Taillebois waving his arm in the air and bellowing some new tactic, lost beneath the roar of battle. The hated enemy army began to fall back.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  THE AXE FELL one more time and blood spurted up. Harald Redteeth thrust the dying man aside and drove into the midst of Morcar’s army, cutting and slashing as he went. Behind him, Ivo Taillebois waved his men on, snarling encouragement.

  The Norman commander had made a brutal decision. At their backs, he had left a line of his warriors to die in battle with the men of Ely. The bulk of his force now drove towards the weary English at the centre of the hollow. The Viking glimpsed the furrowed lines of incomprehension on his allies’ faces and laughed. He could see the Butcher’s plan as clear as day and it was the only one they had left.