Brann smiled. ‘Good to see you both. Although Grakk looks a little overdressed.’
Grakk pulled uncomfortably at the long, sleeveless, woollen waistcoat that was all that covered his wiry, tattooed torso.
‘I am far from happy,’ he grumbled. ‘This country is far too cold. One requires far too many clothes. It is not convenient and surely cannot be healthy.’
‘You should have seen the struggle we had getting him to wear even just that,’ Gerens confided. ‘He only cheered up when he found those two curvy swords.’
Grakk scowled. ‘Scimitars, you ignorant boy. These are true swords, not the sharpened clubs that you people use. One requires skill to use these – would you like me to demonstrate for you?’
The offer was half in humour, but Gerens considered it seriously, and nervously. ‘It is fine, I believe you. But I think we will have plenty of chances for you to demonstrate for the men from the mountains, instead. We all have a few scores to settle with them.’
That thought cheered up Grakk immediately. ‘Indeed,’ he grinned. ‘Many scores can be settled today.’
Hakon appeared beside them. ‘Ah, my erstwhile comrades in captivity! Are we ready to show our appreciation to our former hosts for the treatment we received?’
‘Funnily enough,’ Brann smiled, ‘they were just talking about that.’
‘Well, very soon you will have a chance to do more than talk,’ Hakon replied, indicating behind them. ‘Here comes Konall – we must be all sorted out now, and from the noises ahead, we cannot waste any time.’
Konall jogged up, and glanced around their little group. ‘Are you ready?’ Four grim faces and nearly thirty more behind them nodded at him. He spoke tensely, his voice coming in a clipped rush. ‘We will move out slightly behind Cannick’s group, so we can judge how best to use ourselves as the others hit the enemy.’ He looked at Brann and Gerens. ‘I am assuming that the two of you have no experience or knowledge of what you are going into, so you should work with Hakon, me,’ he nodded towards Grakk, ‘and him as a group of five. The other two know what they are doing and while I can’t move my shield arm properly, the shield itself will give me enough protection on that side to let me work my sword. You two stay close to us.’
Brann interrupted. ‘I do not want to be a hindrance to you.’
‘Be quiet,’ Konall snapped. ‘There is no time for being considerate. We work as a group, no argument. Many, if not all, of the others will be doing the same to some extent or another. There will be no time or opportunity for you to watch others and learn, so listen now. I will keep it brief: watch each other’s backs as much as you can and, when you are facing a man, deal with him the quickest and simplest way possible. Once he is down, check all around you – especially behind – for the nearest and most immediate danger.’
The last of the other group had just finished moving away. Konall raised his hand and swept it forward in a clear signal to the men with him. ‘Stick together,’ he said to the four around him as they moved forward. Then, astonishingly, he grinned. ‘And enjoy yourselves!’
Stunned, Gerens looked at Brann as they broke into a trot. ‘Did I just see him smile?’ he asked incredulously – an ironic question, Brann thought, coming from him.
‘Not only that,’ Brann said, pushing his helmet back from his eyes, ‘but that is the second time in a matter of hours that he has done it. These sort of situations seem to bring out the best in him. Or the worst.’
Gerens grunted. ‘While he is on our side, I will call it the best.’
They were climbing a shallow rise, and Brann watched as Cannick’s party spread out into a wide line as they approached the crest of the slope. Nausea lurched through him and his knees buckled slightly as he forced forward limbs that had suddenly become heavy with fear.
‘You all right, chief?’ Gerens asked.
‘Not really,’ Brann said, his voice sounding distant and detached to him. ‘I am scared witless. I feel like I just want to turn and run away from here as fast as I can.’
‘Thank the gods,’ the other boy replied. ‘I thought I was the only one feeling that way.’
Grakk’s voice came from close behind. ‘All men feel this way before battle. Time to think is not helpful at a time like this. You will feel better when you start fighting. No time to think then.’
‘I hope so,’ Brann said faintly, using his forearm to push his helmet away from his eyes yet again. ‘And it had better be soon, or I think I will be sick. Or wet myself. Or both.’
‘Me, too,’ Gerens said with his usual simple honesty. ‘At the warehouse I could not wait to get at these people… Now it seems… different.’
Hakon appeared beside them and jovially slapped Brann on the back, the jolt tilting his helmet over his eyes yet again. ‘Worry not, lads – we are about to start.’ He pointed ahead. ‘There go the first lot.’
As the other party had crested the ridge, Cannick had swept his sword down from on high and, with a roar that startled Brann both in terms of its volume and its abrupt start, they launched themselves towards the chaos below.
‘Here we go,’ Hakon continued cheerfully as Konall waved them forward, up the slope. He reached across and pushed Brann’s helmet back. ‘That looks a bit loose – you had better watch it doesn’t fall over your eyes.’
The thought passed through Brann’s mind of telling Hakon where exactly the helmet was in danger of being rammed, but the words stuck in his throat. He felt detached, almost surreal, as they broke into a trot towards the crest of the shallow hill. His breathing was shallow, but loud in his ears. His stomach was knotted and his legs were leaden and harder to lift with each successive step. He was so scared that he felt on the verge of fainting. And he desperately wished he was anywhere else but here.
They were nearing the low summit, and some of the men started to spread out. With a quick wave Konall stopped them.
‘Keep tight,’ he shouted over the noise that was filling the air from the other side of the hill. ‘We do not know yet where we will strike. Wait to spread out until we charge – that way we will hit them as a broad arrowhead and punch into them. Follow my lead and my signal.’
The men crowded together again and, as they crested the hill, Konall said to Brann, ‘Stay close to me. I may want your opinion on where to hit them.’
As the scene of desperate and frantic fighting opened up in front of them, it was instantly apparent that there was no question as to where they were most needed. The warlord’s party, beset on all sides, were defending themselves ferociously but looked as if they could be over-run at any instant, such were the relentless numbers throwing themselves upon them with an eagerness for blood that was obvious even at a distance. The first party of reinforcements was wreaking havoc and confusion at the rear, but the sheer number and fanaticism of the wildmen prevented them from having any effect on the struggle around the nobles’ party.
‘To the warlord! Follow me!’ Konall roared, and set off at a sprint. The others hurried to catch him, and with a visible and urgent objective now clear rather than just the general imaginings of anarchic and brutal conflict that had gone before, Brann forgot his fear. Pounding across and down the slope, trying to keep up with Konall’s longer legs, he focused on the point at which they would slam into the side of the wildmen attacking the warlord’s party and forced himself as hard as his legs would carry him towards it.
Below them, blood and sweat stinging his eyes and plastering his long hair to his face, Einarr glanced up as movement on the hillside caught the edge of his vision. The party knew that they had been reinforced, but could not see by whom, and they had quickly realised that the help would soon be insufficient to save them. In an action that had already been repeated countless times, Einarr slammed an attacker’s weapon away with a two-handed swing of his heavy sword, and killed the man with the return swing in the opposite direction, the effort dragging a grunt from him that was becoming more of a shout with every blow. As another opponent leap
t to take the dead man’s place with a scream of bloodlust, he risked wiping a sleeve across his eyes and snatched a quick look again at the hillside. His surprise almost cost him his life, and his astonishment froze him for an instant. Years of training and survival instincts born of countless life-threatening situations kicked in however and he dealt with his next opponent as efficiently as the last, although weariness seemed slightly less in evidence than before.
‘By all the gods, it is the slaves,’ he gasped, his voice cracking with relief and unexpected emotion.
‘What is that, boy?’ his father roared beside him, swinging a large, double-headed axe that he had plucked from the hands of a lifeless warrior, with lethal ease as if it were a switch, the tattoo of a dragon on one massive bicep seeming to writhe with every movement.
‘Tell the others,’ Einarr shouted back between swings, ‘we only need to hold out for a few moments more. We are about to receive some help.’
As Brann and those with him closed on the position, they noticed that the small party was fighting with increased vigour.
‘Come on!’ Hakon bellowed, unable to contain himself. ‘They are going to hang on enough for us to reach them!’
Their speed and the downwards slope carried them headlong like a battering ram into the flank of the wildmen at one side of the beleaguered party. They had been concentrating so hard on getting there before it was too late that, to a man, they had never thought of roaring a challenge as they charged, and their near-silent approach saw them crash deep into the mass of the enemy before it was even known that they were coming.
Brann found himself heading for a tall, skinny man with a rusty pike. Catching his foot on the leg of a corpse left behind as the warlord’s party had slowly been forced backwards by the initial assault, before they had become surrounded, he stumbled and his helmet fell, predictably, over his eyes. In fury and frustration, he skidded to a halt, rammed his sword point-first into the hard earth, and wrenched the helmet from his head. He swung it directly at the unsuspecting man, catching him squarely on the side of the head. Grabbing his sword, he followed the direction of the helmet.
The man was stunned for only an instant, but a wild slash of Brann’s sword ensured that he never lived beyond that moment. Remembering Konall’s advice, he did not dwell on his small success but immediately swung around, just in time to see a snarling foe with a short spear lunging at him. Too late to take the thrust directly on his shield, he swayed to his left and brought the shield down hard, turning his arm over so that the top edge forced the spear downwards and the point into the ground. Pivoting his shoulders, he swung his shield back round and his sword arm forward, taking the wildman square in the chest. The man’s eyes widened – not in surprise, but in fury – before they balled and he slumped to one side.
Trapped between the man’s ribs, Brann’s sword was twisted from his grasp. In a panic, he leapt upon the lifeless body and, one foot on its chest, wrenched the weapon from its gruesome sheath. Eyes wild, he swung round and back again, seeking danger.
There was movement to his right. He flung his sword around, desperately. Hakon jumped back in alarm.
‘Easy, little wolf,’ he said. ‘Save it for the bad people.’
The familiar voice jerked Brann back to reality. He paused long enough to hear Konall shout, ‘Get back here, you short-legged idiot. You cannot take them all on by yourself.’
Calmed slightly, Brann looked quickly round him. The force of their charge, and its surprise factor, had carried them into the mass of the mountain men slightly behind the enemy’s front two ranks. Those two rough lines of wildmen were isolated as a result, and the party of nobles had been able to cut through them before the remainder of the enemy, who had been rocked back by the sudden and unexpected entrance of the reinforcements, could assist their companions. Konall’s men were now able to protect that side of the warlord’s party, allowing the nobles to turn their full force on the wildmen who had circled behind them, originally surrounding them, but were now cut off themselves. In seconds, they had been slaughtered.
Hakon took advantage of the fleeting respite as the majority of the wildmen adjusted to the developments in the fight. To respond to Konall’s cry of ‘Get him back here, now!’ he grabbed Brann by the back of his tunic and dragged him at a run to the rest of his companions.
‘This time, we stick together like I said,’ Konall instructed.
‘I am sorry,’ Brann stammered. ‘I have no idea how it happened.’
His momentum must have carried him into the throng until he came across an opponent and, by chance, his path must have opened up further before him than anyone else’s had. But, before he could expound his theory to Konall, the mountain men were upon them once more.
The little band of five formed into a loose group, far enough apart to have some room to fight, but close enough to support each other. A leering, bearded man, the top half of his face concealed behind one of the demonic masks favoured by the wildmen, came at Brann with a cleaver held high above his head. As he started his downward swing, however, Brann pre-empted his move by darting forward and poking the tip of his sword into the man’s throat. He jumped to the side as the body, and weapon, crashed towards him.
He had deliberately, this time, thrust his weapon only far enough to be effective without carrying on and trapping it but, before he could congratulate himself, another man was upon him, carrying a long-handled axe with more worn notches than straight edges along the blade. Brann deflected the blow with his shield, but not without jarring his arm almost to the point of numbness. Falling forwards, he thrust out his sword to steady himself – and by chance stabbed in through one of his foe’s ragged-booted feet. The man screamed, pausing as he raised his weapon for another almighty blow, and Brann thrust his sword into his heart. The killing blow, by necessity, had to be deeper than that delivered to the previous man’s throat but he remembered to pull his sword back quickly before the body fell, and he was able to stand ready for the next attack.
Hakon grunted beside him as he almost decapitated an opponent. ‘You could try swinging that thing now and again. I have never seen anyone so determined to stick it straight into people. These swords are really made for cutting, you know.’
Like Brann, he was casting about for another opponent, but the emphasis seemed to have moved away from their side of the group for the moment. His eyes opened wide in alarm as movement caught his attention, and he slammed his sword, point-first, into the throat of the wildman who had fallen beside Brann. The thrust by Brann must have failed to find his heart properly and the man had retained just enough life, and fury, to try to thrust a rusty knife up at the boy standing over him. Hakon’s sword-tip had, however, finished what Brann had started.
‘I will admit, however,’ the tall boy added, ‘that this poking thing does sometimes have its merits.’
The wildmen had started to panic as their advantage and seemingly easy victory had vanished under the combined fightback of the nobles and their reinforcements. Falling back had taken them away from Brann and Hakon’s side of the group, explaining the pair’s sudden lack of opponents, and Brann glanced about to find another position where he could be more helpful.
The other three were somewhat busier. Konall was using his sword with his usual assured efficiency; to his left, Gerens was swinging his axe with an effectiveness that was probably surprising even himself; and, to Konall’s right, Grakk was engaged in what appeared to be a macabre dance with as many opponents as he could find, the two scimitars weaving shining patterns as he twisted, turned, crouched and spun in a mesmeric flow of movement.
Brann moved to help them and, as he did so, saw a large bearded man aim an unnoticed blow at Konall’s side. The young noble was in the process of despatching another foe and had no idea that the unseen man was delivering an overhand thrust with a heavy spear. In desperation, Bran threw himself forward and flung his sword up blindly. The blade, by good fortune, smacked against the spear shaft, knocki
ng it upwards, but Brann’s dive had taken him onto one knee, directly in front of the mountain man – with his back to him. Without time to rise or turn, he let go of the handle of his shield (it was still attached to his forearm by a heavy strap) and, reversing his sword, he grasped the hilt with his left hand. With his right palm against the pummel, he shouted hoarsely with the effort and thrust the blade backwards under his left shoulder, driving it into the stomach of the nauseatingly stinking man and up under his ribs and into his chest. The man fell forwards onto Brann, forcing the boy’s chest almost onto his knee and making him retch at his stench. Konall, who had finished his opponent in time to notice Brann’s intervention, used his boot to push the corpse from the smaller boy and Brann, with a savage grunt that contrasted with the mask of calm, almost serenity, that had oddly settled over his face, twisted slightly to help retrieve his blade as the body slumped backwards.
Brann never saw the blow coming. Konall watched, almost mesmerised by horror, as a drooling, cackling wildman leapt on top of his dead comrade’s body and swung a high looping downwards swing directly at the crown of the smaller boy’s unprotected head, just as Brann started to look up at Konall with a smile of gratitude.
For a long second, watching as the movement seemed to unfold in slow motion, Konall hesitated, watching the death of his friend. Comprehension of Brann’s mortal danger kicked him back to reality and, in desperate panic, he lashed out with his sword.
The movement was so quick that Brann could not realise what was happening until he felt a dull thump above and behind his left ear. It felt more like a punch than the strike of a weapon, and he started to rise to confront the culprit.
Konall knew otherwise. His sword had managed to deflect the wildman’s broad-bladed weapon, but not enough to force it completely away from Brann. The edge of the blade smacked into Brann’s head exactly where he had felt it but, rather than cleaving his skull as it would have done had it struck him squarely on the crown, it instead and, to Konall’s astonishment, bounced off Brann’s head, ricocheting wildly to one side.
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