He could look no longer. The new attackers had climbed within range of the defenders’ spears. Beobrand feinted the gore-slick tip of his spear at the legs of a warrior who wore a heavy coat of leather over a long byrnie. The man lowered his shield slightly to deflect the spear, and as quick as a striking viper, Beobrand raised the spear-point to the warrior’s exposed chest. The ash haft of the spear jarred and jolted in Beobrand’s hand at the impact. And yet it was not the man’s wyrd to die thus. The steel sliced into the leathern warrior-coat but did not penetrate the man’s byrnie. He was halted in his tracks and Beobrand pushed his weight onto the spear, hoping to drive it between the metal links of the armour. But still the iron-knit shirt held and the warrior released his hold on his shield and, gripping Beobrand’s spear, he twisted his body and tugged it towards him. Beobrand staggered forward, off balance for a moment, before relinquishing the spear.
The man must have been in pain from the force of the blow to his chest, but his face broke into a wide smile at having won this small battle with the huge fair-haired thegn atop the earthwork. He slipped a few paces back down the slope before fully recovering his footing. Then he tossed the spear aside and stooped to pick up his shield. He raised his sword and pointed it at Beobrand. He shouted something, a challenge perhaps, but his words were lost in the tumult of the battle.
Then he resumed his climb towards Beobrand, who now pulled Hrunting from its scabbard. He would accept the man’s challenge. He had escaped Beobrand’s spear, he would not live to tell the tale of facing Beobrand with a sword.
The man’s eyes bored into Beobrand as he clambered up the blood-streaked grass.
“Come and meet death!” yelled Beobrand, lost now to the savage glee of blood-letting. Hrunting thrummed in his hand, ready for the sword-song to begin. Standing on the balls of his feet, Beobrand quivered with excitement. Hrunting was light in his grasp. The man shouted something again and strode the last few steps up the slope. Beobrand beckoned him on. He would allow him to reach the top of the slope and there slay him for all to see. He grinned.
“Come and die!” he bellowed, banging the flat of Hrunting’s blade against his shield.
The man let out his own scream and closed the distance with Beobrand in a last burst of speed.
But before their blades or shields clashed, Beobrand’s opponent stopped short, a look of confusion on his face. As Beobrand watched, the man’s throat opened into a broad gash and blood sheeted down his chest over his fine leather coat. A gush of hot blood fountained bright in the sunlight, splattering Beobrand’s face, chest and arms.
The man’s eyes rolled back into his head and he toppled backwards down the slope. Attor lowered his spear.
“Did you see that?” he asked. “He didn’t even know his throat had been cut until he was dead. He was too intent on fighting the great Beobrand Half-hand to see Attor the quick nearly take his head from his shoulders.” He laughed.
Beobrand blinked the sting of blood from his eyes. The broad-leafed head of Attor’s spear was painted red with the man’s battle-sweat. Attor grinned at the look on his lord’s face.
“Well, you told him to come and die,” he said.
They stepped forward and looked down into the ditch. Dead and dying men were strewn on the slope and in the mud at the bottom. An arrow buried itself into the earth at Beobrand’s feet. He did not flinch.
“Look,” said Gram, stepping close to Beobrand and Attor, “they retreat.”
It was true. All along the ditch, Mercians and Waelisc warriors were running back towards their host. Some stopped to help injured comrades out of the corpse-strewn mud, but most jumped over the fallen warriors and ran up the far bank. The East Angelfolc host grew still. The sound of their panting was loud. A man screamed somewhere with the ululating wailing of an infant and, unbidden, the face of Octa came to Beobrand. Now was not the time to think of his son. Now was the time to deal death.
“Men of the East Angelfolc,” he shouted in a voice loud enough to rip his throat. “Behold the treasures that Penda and his band of thieves have brought us.” He gestured into the ditch and all who heard him looked at the tangled mass of bodies. Swords, seaxes, spears and shields were scattered amongst the dead. The midday sun glinted on the fresh crimson of blood and the gold of brooches, hilts and arm rings. There was treasure indeed. Riches in a charnel pit.
“They bring us gifts and what do we give them?” he bellowed.
“Death!” replied his gesithas and a few other men of the fyrd.
“What do we give them?” he repeated.
“Death!” the cry was picked up by more of the men.
The chat grew in volume until it was a wall of noise that rolled over the ditch to reach the retreating men and those other warriors who had yet to be blooded in the battle.
Around him the men continued to shout their defiance at the invaders. But Beobrand fell quiet. He stared intently across the great dyke. Sweat streamed down his face, mingling with the sticky blood and stinging his eyes. He wiped at them with the back of his hand.
There, almost directly before his position, swayed Grimbold’s bear-head banner. Beneath it he could see the giant warrior’s shock of flame-red beard. And beside him, the smaller form of Wybert. Beobrand glowered across the distance at the man, willing him to be the next to climb the slope, to be the next warrior to come to accept the payment for the gifts he brought.
Beobrand hawked blood and spit from his mouth, and once more lent his voice to the chant that he had started.
“Death! Death! Death!”
Chapter 20
“By Tiw’s cock!”
Gram’s scream reached Beobrand even over the clamour of hundreds of men shouting their loathing and fear at one another; despite the smithy-crash of metal on metal and the muting of sound that came from his helmet’s cheek guards. He had retrieved the helm after that first assault and it was now firmly tied in place. There was a dent in the metal where the sling stone had hit. It would need hammering out. If they survived. For now, the bent metal made the helmet uncomfortable, pressing as it did into the tender place where the stone had impacted. But better the pain than an unprotected head. The helm had saved his life once already this day, and he would not set it aside now.
Beobrand glanced at Gram. He was yet standing, but his face was pallid beneath his helm.
“What is it, Gram?” asked Beobrand, looking back at the balding Waelisc man who screamed at him in his impossible tongue. Spittle flecked the man’s lips as he yelled and thrust forward with a short stabbing sword. Beobrand deflected the blow with his shield, sending a counter at the man’s groin. Hrunting was sheathed now, and Beobrand had taken up the seax that had been his brother’s. Its blade was shorter; good for the butcher’s work of the shieldwall. The Waelisc avoided the seax blade, stepping back slightly. Though he could not step far without the risk of slipping down the slope into the ditch.
“My leg,” Gram shouted, his voice clipped and tight. “Spear.” The words came with difficulty, his teeth clenched against the pain. He needed all his strength to hold off the warrior who menaced him with a short hand axe.
Beobrand glanced down and saw fresh blood soaking Gram’s breeches and leg bindings. He had taken a blow high up on his thigh, probably from one of the men behind and lower down the slope than the first line of the shieldwall that faced them. There was much blood. He would die if it was not bound. Beobrand would not allow that.
With a bellow, Beobrand shoved forward with all his might against the balding Waelisc warrior. As their shields clashed, Beobrand dropped to his knee, holding his linden-board high. He felt the Waelisc warrior’s sword clatter against his shield boss. At the same moment Beobrand slashed under his shield. The heavy seax blade bit deeply into the man’s right foot. He screamed piteously. Beobrand wrenched the blade free and rose to his feet in one fluid motion, shoving forward as he stood. The Waelisc, face the colour of whey, fell away from him, colliding with the men who came behind up th
e embankment.
Without pause, Beobrand swung to the left, to Gram’s attacker. The warrior was intent on killing Gram and so was oblivious of Beobrand at his flank where moments before a comrade-in-arms had stood. The man never knew who killed him. Beobrand swung his gore-spattered seax into the back of the man’s neck. The blade hacked into the flesh and severed bone and sinew. The warrior fell like a slaughtered bull at Blotmonath.
A man with a red-tipped spear, perhaps the spear that had wounded Gram, came fast to fill the breach. Beobrand swung his shield round to parry the attack. The shock of the spear-blow brought a pang of pain from old wounds, but his arm was healed now; strong. The spear-point dug into the scarred hide of the shield and scraped across the boards. Beobrand pushed forward, hoping to unbalance the spearman. But the man did not falter, instead he flicked the wicked point of the spear at Beobrand’s face.
Beobrand was exposed here. The defenders’ shieldwall would crumble quickly if left broken for long. But a seax was no match for a spear. The man would be able to hold him off for long enough to allow others to swarm up the slope and into the gap Beobrand had opened up. The spear came at him again, and once more Beobrand caught it on his shield. He must finish this. But how? All the while he fought here, Gram’s lifeblood was pumping from him.
Then, without warning, the spear ceased its probing. Beobrand feared a feint; a trick of some kind. But the splash of scarlet on the spearman’s throat told him quickly of the truth of it. Attor had sprung forward and once more plunged his spear into the throat of an enemy.
Attor cackled, drunk on the killing.
“I will eat your fucking entrails, you curs!” he screamed. “I will bathe in your blood.”
Around them, Penda’s men fell back from the two battle-crazed, blood-drenched warriors.
Beobrand resisted the urge to throw himself down the slope at them. His blood pumped hot in his veins. He could rush them now, hewing through their ranks to find Wybert. But in his mind, he heard Scand’s voice yelling at him that to do so would bring destruction and death. They must hold the shieldwall. He stepped back.
“Attor,” he snapped, “to me.”
Attor, savage and blood-spattered shook his head like a dog stepping from a river. For an instant, Beobrand thought he would ignore him and run at the Mercians, but then, Attor moved back to take his place beside his lord.
“Get one of the women to bind your wound,” Beobrand said to Gram.
“My place is here,” Gram replied, his voice as jagged as pine splinters.
“Your place is to do your lord’s bidding,” Beobrand snapped. “You are no use to me dead. Now go.”
Gram nodded and half-walked, half-fell down the slope towards where the camp womenfolk were congregated in a huddled group. There was much blood on his leg and he was as pale as ewe’s milk. Beobrand hoped he would live.
“To me,” he shouted, his voice now cracking from the strain. Attor and the rest of his gesithas closed ranks with him, filling the void left by Gram. Dreogan, as grim-faced and menacing as a monster from a scop’s tale now stood to his left. His eyes glared out at the enemy line that still had not resumed the fight.
Beobrand took in a great gulp of air. His throat was dry and his body drenched in sweat and the cloying stickiness of blood. This was the third time that Penda’s host had attacked since that first brutal onslaught and the day was still far from over. Clouds had begun to form in the north and west, but they gave no respite from the heat of the sun. The pauses in between attacks had been too short to allow the defenders to fully rest. The camp women and children ran up the slope to them with water and what food they could carry when the fighting ceased for a moment, but the slumped warriors could scarcely dampen their mouths or swallow more than a mouthful of bread before the Mercians and Waelisc came on again. If the East Angelfolc had hoped that the great ditch would prove too much of an obstacle for the invaders, none now believed it. No matter the number of warriors they killed, more took their place.
The shieldwall was yet intact. But many defenders had fallen. With each attack, the wall became more ragged, buckling in places, before men rallied and pushed the attackers back. It still held, but for how long?
In the ditch before them, the men who had retreated seemed to have lost their appetite for battle. They stepped back cautiously. The bottom of the ditch was clogged with the dead and some of the retreating men had to step on the pallid corpses of their fallen. Beobrand let out a sigh. He desperately needed something to drink. He rammed his seax blade into the earth and was just preparing to lower himself to the ground when a great cheer rose from the centre of the shieldwall. Beobrand raised himself to his full height and peered over the line of men who stood atop the earthwork. But the line was thinning. His stomach twisted as he understood what he saw.
The East Angelfolc were charging down the slope in pursuit of the retreating attackers. At their head he recognised the shining great helm of Ecgric. The king seemed to have found his bravery, but his recklessness would likely lead to the doom of his people.
“No!” Beobrand screamed. “Hold the shieldwall!” His voice was lost in the tumult of voices now raised in an ecstasy of anger as defenders became attackers.
“No!” he shouted again, and his men faltered. Wynhelm too held his men in check. Any warrior knew that holding the high ground was their best and only hope of victory.
But all along the dyke, men rushed down the slope, where they fell upon Penda’s warriors, hacking and hewing them in the blood-churned quagmire there.
Beobrand stopped shouting. Nobody was listening. The warriors had followed their king, perhaps believing that victory was certain. He shook his head, looking over the ditch to where a mass of Penda’s host now gathered, ready to throw themselves upon Ecgric and his fyrd.
With horror, he watched as the Mercians and Waelisc surged over the lip of the lower, western edge of the ditch. Ecgric and the East Angelfolc would be destroyed.
“What should we do?” Wynhelm asked, his voice hollow from fatigue and shock. He had come close to Beobrand to make himself heard over the din of the battle. “We should flee this place while we have the chance.”
Beobrand nodded absently. He knew that the older thegn was right. They owed nothing to this land or its foolhardy king. And yet, Beobrand did not turn to seek out Sceadugenga and the other horses where they had been corralled. Instead, he tugged his seax from the earth, wiped it on a corpse’s kirtle, and sheathed it.
For, entering the fray directly below them, he saw a huge red-bearded warrior, who had stood beneath Grimbold’s bear-head standard. And beside the giant came a smaller, darker warrior. A warrior who was in fact a walking corpse and had been these past two years.
Without a word, Beobrand dragged Hrunting from its scabbard. The fine sword caught the rays of the sun with a flash. It had been his brother’s blade before him and it was right that it should be the one to taste the blood-price of vengeance.
“What are you doing?” asked Wynhelm, incredulity in his voice.
“What I must,” replied Beobrand, and ran down the blood-slick slope, into the morass of the slaughter.
Chapter 21
“Careful, girl,” snapped Maida, her voice shrill, “nobody wants yarn full of dust and ants.”
Reaghan had never been good with spindle and whorl, but she had offered to help Maida nonetheless. She enjoyed spending time with the goodwife and her children. On a day like today, warm and sultry, with midges hazing the air, it was pleasing to be outside of Elmer’s hut, watching little Octa play with the other children. Reaghan had been smiling to see him crawling after Maida’s youngest, Bysen, a girl of four years, when she had inadvertently allowed the yarn to break and the spindle had fallen to the dirt. The girl was teasing Octa, dangling a small carved wooden horse just out of his reach. Each time she did this, Octa would stop and reach up a pudgy hand, only to have her snatch the toy away with a laugh and scurry away. He did not cry. He merely frowned and star
ted after the girl once more, a look of serious determination on his baby features.
“Sorry,” Reaghan said, “I’m not being much help to you.” She hated feeling she was a burden on Maida, who was one of the few people in the settlement who had been kind to her.
“It is I who should be sorry,” replied Maida, smoothing her dress nervously with her hands.
It was always thus with Maida. Reaghan’s heart clenched.
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” said Reaghan. “I am in the wrong, and it is right you should tell me.”
Maida mumbled something, but looked unhappy.
Reaghan quickly gathered up the wool from the ground and continued spinning, taking more care this time on what she was about. If only Maida would treat her as her equal, just another woman waiting for her man to return. Were they so different? But Reaghan knew the answer to that question all too well. This woman had always been kindly to her when she was a thrall, and she was not unkind to her now. But could they ever be friends? It seemed not. They were separated by too much perhaps.
Maida bustled into the hut, from where the comforting smell of pottage wafted. The older woman felt as uncomfortable as Reaghan no doubt. Neither knew how to behave with the other, and yet Maida could not send her away. Reaghan was the woman of the lord of Ubbanford now. She longed for just one friend. Someone with whom she could speak her inner thoughts. But the women despised her for having been a thrall, and the thralls loathed her for the same reason. It seemed there was nothing worse in their eyes than a freed slave.
She gazed absently up at the hall on the hill. Wisps of cloud were forming in the sky, but there was no sign that rain would come anytime soon to clear the air.
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