The Serpent Sword (Bernicia Chronicles Book 1)

by Matthew Harffy

  They parted. Beobrand went on the offensive almost instantly in an attempt to catch Hengist by surprise. He wielded his langseax with all his strength and skill, landing a flurry of blows upon Hengist’s shield. Hengist effortlessly deflected all of Beobrand’s attacks. He laughed again. “Is that the best you can do?”

  Beobrand could feel his strength sapping. The cut on his arm must be deeper than he had originally thought. Soon he wouldn’t be able to lift his shield at all. He could see no way of breaking down Hengist’s defence. Beobrand had been walking all day, then he had run and now he was losing blood. Hengist was hardly out of breath.

  Every time they moved Beobrand could feel his feet shifting and sliding, making him clumsy, slow to react. Hengist seemed unaffected by the poor condition of the ground.

  They exchanged more blows, ending up shield to shield. For a moment they were staring at each other. Hengist’s eyes were full of malice, a gleeful violence. Then he gave a shove, lifted his sword up and under Beobrand’s shield, cutting into his side, beneath his ribs.

  Beobrand let out a cry and jumped back. Hengist did not press home his advantage; content to watch his young adversary suffer some more before delivering the killer blow.

  The pain in Beobrand’s side was excruciating. He wanted to probe it with his fingers to find how bad it was, but he could not risk letting his guard down for a moment. The warmth of his blood soaked into his woollen jerkin. He scanned the faces of the people watching the fight. It looked as if everyone in the village had arrived while he had been fighting Hengist. Now they would all be able to witness his death. At least they now so vastly outnumbered Hengist and Dreng that there was no chance of the two escaping.

  “Octa died a coward’s death,” said Hengist. “Alone in the dark. No sword in his hand.”

  If Hengist hoped to unnerve Beobrand, his words had the opposite effect.

  “You mean you murdered him in the dark when he was not prepared to fight you,” Beobrand panted. “There is no dishonour for my brother. But you are craven. The worst kind of man.”

  The pale face of Coenred caught his eye. The young monk was staring at him earnestly, worry etched on his features. But something else too. Could it be pride?

  Beobrand said, “It is not dark here and I am armed and ready, Hengist. Come to me and let us finish this.”

  Hengist let out a roar and took three bounding steps towards Beobrand, lunging forwards with his sword point, hoping to strike inside Beobrand’s guard.

  Beobrand was slow to react. His near exhaustion, coupled with his loss of blood, made him sluggish. He moved to meet Hengist’s charge, but he was too late. Hengist’s sword was aimed at his right shoulder and there was no way he would be able to lift his shield in time. He attempted a desperate leap to one side, but his left foot slipped in the slick mud. He fell, sprawling into the mire.

  His timing could not have been more perfect if he had made the move intentionally. Hengist’s sword slid safely over him. Instead of running him through the shoulder, it pierced thin air. Hengist’s speed carried him forward, unable to slow himself down or adjust his attack. His feet crashed into Beobrand’s thighs. He lost his balance and he toppled over on top of Beobrand.

  Beobrand instinctively raised his langseax to ward off Hengist’s falling form. His blade sliced into Hengist’s unprotected face. The sharp blade opened up a cut from Hengist’s chin to his left eyebrow. He dropped the sword, let out a shriek and rolled away from Beobrand, clutching his face with both hands.

  Beobrand staggered to his feet, not quite sure what had happened. The onlooking crowd let out a ragged gasp. Dreng moved to Hengist’s side. Helped him to his feet. Blood was streaming from the gash in his face. Hengist clamped his right hand to it. His left still clutching his shield. His right eye stared balefully at Beobrand.

  “What have you done, you bastard? By Tiw, I’ll eat your heart!” Beobrand stood his ground, swaying slightly, his legs weak. Alric and some of the villagers took a few steps forwards.

  Dreng pulled Hengist towards the horses. He helped Hengist onto his horse, then mounted his own. “Come, brother,” he whispered, “You cannot win this fight today.”

  “This hasn’t finished!” screamed Hengist. “I will have my revenge on you, Beobrand. I swear it on all the gods.” He had dropped his hands to the horse’s reins, his face a bloody ruin. “I’ll kill you and take back Hrunting. Your life and the sword are both mine.” He turned his steed, kicked his heels to its flanks and galloped away northward.

  Dreng followed him, his horse flinging up gobbets of mud in its wake.

  A stillness fell on those watching. They stared after the two horsemen until they had been swallowed up by the gloom of the forest road.

  Beobrand could not quite believe what had just transpired. He silently thanked Woden, father of the gods. For surely the gods had guided his hand and caused him to slip at exactly the right moment. To think it had been blind luck was too frightening. He began to tremble. He could feel the strength ebbing from his limbs. Perhaps he could go and lie down in the dry of Alric and Wilda’s hut, when a strangely familiar voice penetrated his foggy senses.

  “Well, Edwin said you’d be a mighty warrior!” roared the voice.

  Beobrand spun round, dizziness blurring his vision. Striding towards him was the hulking figure of Bassus, King Edwin’s champion and Octa’s best friend. He was resplendent in his war gear and leading a chestnut horse. There were several other riders dismounting behind him.

  The huge warrior tossed the reins of his horse to Coenred, who was standing looking dumbstruck. Bassus stooped and picked up the beautiful, patterned-bladed sword from the ground where it lay and walked to Beobrand, smiling broadly.

  Beobrand was confused. “What? How are you here?” he blurted out.

  “Well, there I was thinking you might actually be pleased to see me. I have to say I am pleased to see you. I was sure you were with Octa, drinking in the hall of the gods.” He gave Beobrand an appraising look. Beobrand’s face was gaunt from a winter of sleeping rough and foraging off the land. He had a scar under his left eye. His left arm and side were stained crimson from his injuries. He was soaking wet and covered from head to foot in cloying mud.

  “From the look of you, you haven’t got far to go to join your brother.”

  With his cloak, Bassus wiped Beobrand’s blood from the sword’s blade, admiring the workmanship. “Well, I never thought to see this sword again. It seems it has chosen to be reunited with the kin of its previous owner.” Beobrand looked at Bassus, confused by his presence.

  He proffered the sword to Beobrand, hilt first. “Hrunting was gifted to your brother by King Edwin. It seems it was not lost in the sea after all.”

  Beobrand took the sword. “Hengist murdered Octa. I must avenge him…” His voice trailed off.

  Bassus placed a hand on his shoulder, steadying him. “We can talk of this later.”

  Beobrand was in no state to have a conversation. He was wavering on the verge of consciousness. Bassus turned to the assembled crowd. “My companions and I are travelling north. We mean no harm. We seek refuge here for the night. We will pay well for food and shelter.” The tension eased from the villagers. “But first, let’s get young Beobrand here somewhere warm and dry and his wounds tended to.”

  Alric stepped forward. “He can come to my family’s home. Come, Beobrand.” He placed his hand on Beobrand’s arm.

  The glazed look left Beobrand’s eyes and he turned to Coenred. “Well, I make us even now. That’s twice I’ve saved you. I told you a son of Grimgundi always repays his debts.”

  Bassus stretched his feet out to the fire. He had ridden all day and for many days prior to that, and riding always made his feet cold. The weather since leaving Cantware had been foul. Wind and rain most days, and freezing nights. Still, it was better than travelling by ship, which is what Queen Ethelburga had wanted. He hated sailing more than he hated riding. It was not natural for men to get into fragile
wooden boats and travel over vast expanses of endless ocean. Every year, when ships were lost at sea, or wrecked on the rocky coastline of Northumbria, Bassus couldn’t help but feel that the sailors had got what they deserved. You could fall off a horse and get back up with a bruise or a broken bone. Fall out of a ship and you were never coming back to dry land. Ethelburga had said that by sea he would get the message he was carrying to King Eanfrith of Bernicia sooner than if he travelled by road. Bassus had replied that if he drowned, Eanfrith would never get the message, so he would ride.

  In the end, Ethelburga had relented and not ordered Bassus to do her bidding exactly. Since the death of her husband, she was less certain of her position and was unsure whether her husband’s men would follow her as they had followed him. After Edwin’s defeat at Elmet, a handful of his most trusted thegns had survived. Led by Bassus, the small group had escaped the field of battle, ridden hard north to Bebbanburg, where Ethelburga, the princess Eanflæd and the little atheling Wuscfrea waited. From there they had sailed south to the lands of Ethelburga’s brother, King Eadbald, in Cantware.

  Bassus remembered those dark days clearly. The defeat at the hands of Penda and Cadwallon had been absolute and terrible. First Osfrid, Edwin’s heir had fallen. Edwin, dismayed and blinded by his loss, had struck out to avenge his son. He had charged forward on his own, causing the shieldwall to split and falter.

  Bassus blamed himself. He should have reacted more quickly to the danger. He should have sensed the tide of battle shifting and acted accordingly. Instead, his king had been struck down and it was all Bassus could do to pull him away from the thick of the fighting before they were completely overrun. In those last moments, Edwin saw clearly what he had done and what the outcome of the battle would be. He had gripped Bassus’ wrist and made him swear on all the gods, both old and new, that he would follow Queen Ethelburga in his stead. Bassus would have gladly laid down his life for his lord, so he was powerless to refuse the request. But now, in the rare moments when he allowed himself to think on the past, he felt a deep-seated shame that he had not died on that battlefield.

  Despite being back in her homeland in the south, Ethelburga still feared for the safety of her children. There was no clear ruler over the northern kingdoms. The exiled heir to Bernicia, Eanfrith, had returned. Osric, Edwin’s cousin, had sat himself on the throne of Deira. Cadwallon continued to vie for control of the two kingdoms, emboldened by his victory over Edwin, who had ruled both.

  With the first green shoots of spring, a trader from Eoferwic had arrived in Cantware recounting tales of Osric being killed and his forces routed by Cadwallon during a siege.

  It was this unsettled situation that had led Ethelburga to send a message north. It was possible that Eanfrith would seek to unite the two kingdoms as Edwin had done. If he was successful, he would surely wish to dispatch with as many potential usurpers of his throne as possible. So Ethelburga had decided to send a message of peace and Christian love to Eanfrith. He was reputed to worship Christ, albeit following the Hibernian traditions taught in the Pictish lands where he had been exiled, and not the teachings as laid out by Bishop Paulinus and Pope Honorius in faraway Rome. Nevertheless, she wished him prosperity and victory over his enemies in the name of the Lord. She also let it be known that her children were no threat to him. Despite this, Ethelburga decided to remove Wuscfrea, her one remaining son, along with Yffi, her stepson Osfrid’s son, from the courts of the noble houses of Albion. At the same time as Bassus had been sent north with the message to Eanfrith, the boys had been sent south to be fostered in the court of her cousin, Dagobert, in Frankia. She prayed they would be safe there, far from the machinations of the different royal lines of Albion.

  Bassus sighed as the warmth of the fire began to seep into his bones. His toes tingled as the blood returned. With a conscious effort, he brought his focus back to the present. He had decided long ago that dwelling on the past was for fools. You could not go back and change your actions, so why go over and over your mistakes in your memory? Because he was a fool. A sentimental fool, who was getting old. He smiled at the thought. It was true that he was not young anymore, though he still had several useful years left in him, he hoped.

  He looked over at the sleeping form of Beobrand. Now there was youth. Beobrand had endured terrible hardship, both of body and mind, and yet he shrugged off his ills as a duck’s feathers shed water. Well, perhaps not that easily. His wounds had been cleaned and bound and it would take several days until he was fighting fit again, but the colour had returned to his face after a small meal of pottage and some mead. Now he slept soundly. The sleep of a child. But he was a child no longer. The last vestiges of childish roundness had left his cheeks. His body and face had taken on a hard edge that was lacking when last Bassus had seen him.

  Bassus still found it hard to believe the boy’s story as it had been told to him that afternoon. How he had survived against all the odds, escaping the battlefield at night. Then being nursed to health here in this village, narrowly avoiding marauding Waelisc from Cadwallon’s force. And finally joining up with some survivors of Edwin’s warband and travelling the wilds throughout the winter. Beobrand had told him little of what had happened during the long winter months, but he had clearly learnt how to fight. When Bassus and his companions had arrived, the fight between Beobrand and Hengist was almost over. Beobrand had been injured and was struggling, yet he still carried himself well, blocking, parrying and attacking like a seasoned veteran. Bassus knew Hengist too. He was a warrior to be reckoned with, savage, skilled and ruthless, with a nasty penchant for wanton violence. So Bassus was surprised at the outcome of the fight. The moment he’d recognised Beobrand, he’d decided to step in to stop Hengist from killing Octa’s younger brother. Just at the moment he’d taken a step forward and was preparing to shout out a command to both warriors to put up their weapons, Beobrand had slipped and ended the fight with the terrible blow to Hengist’s face.

  Beobrand wasn’t just a natural warrior, mused Bassus. He had the commodity that warriors prized more highly than any other: luck.

  Bassus turned his attention to the young monk who sat next to Beobrand like a faithful hound. He had been introduced as Coenred and there was clearly a strong bond of friendship between him and Beobrand. It was he who had found Beobrand and nursed his wounds after the battle of Elmet. It seemed that Hengist had threatened to kill the boy, which is what prompted Beobrand to fight him. Just like his brother. Brave to the point of careless, and a more loyal friend you would not find.

  As he watched, Coenred’s head sank slowly forward. His chin ended up rested on his chest and he fell ever so slowly sideways, until his head rested on Beobrand’s legs. Bassus smiled. He really did look like his dog now.

  Alric, who was sitting quietly next to Bassus, broke the silence. “I’m surprised Coenred stayed awake as long as he did,” he said quietly. “It’s been a terribly long day, and he took a real beating from those bastards.”

  Bassus grunted. He didn’t feel like speaking. He was happy to sit here watching over Beobrand and the monk. From outside came the sound of distant laughter. Bassus’ companions had been put up in different homes in the village, and they seemed to be enjoying themselves. The storm had blown itself out. The night was still, allowing the noise to travel far.

  Alric didn’t press him into conversation. Instead he refilled Bassus’ drinking horn with ale. Bassus nodded his thanks, taking a deep draught. It was good. Fresh and light.

  Both men raised their drinks in silent toast.

  PART TWO

  THE TEMPERING

  CHAPTER 12

  Sunniva was late.

  She was supposed to have the fire burning and the forge ready before her father came out to start work. He said he worked harder than her all day, so it was only fair that she get up before him to prepare things. She wasn’t sure she’d call it fair. She helped lift the glowing hot billets of iron out of the fire and onto the anvil for him to hammer in
a shower of white sparks, and she worked the bellows until her back and arms ached, but she didn’t argue with her father. Strang was a man most men feared and with whom few would pick a quarrel. His shoulders and arms looked capable of bending the metal he worked without the use of fire, anvil or hammer. He was quick to anger, and while he rarely raised his hand to Sunniva, she had learnt to avoid conflict.

  Strang’s sullen moods were worse than his rages. Sunniva’s mother, with her quick smile and easy manner had always been able to snap him out of his depressions. But ever since her death the winter before, Strang spent most of his days gloomily focused on his work. Not having the forge set for him in the morning was not a good start to the day.

  Sunniva rushed to blow air into the charcoal with the bellows. She could hear her father moving inside the house. He would be pulling his leather apron down from its hook by the door. Readying his tools. Sunniva pumped the bellows harder. She was pleased to see the satisfying glow from deep within the mound of charcoal. A wave of heat washed over her with each heave of the bellows. The forge would be ready after all. Stray wisps of her long blond hair, that had escaped her plait, were plastered with sweat to her forehead.

  Strang stepped out into the dim daylight and gazed at his daughter for a moment before she realised he was there. She was half-turned away from him. The heat from the forge made the air flicker above it. She brushed a strand of hair away from her face, and then gave the bellows a last few pushes. She was so beautiful it made his heart ache. It was as if her mother stood before him, as she had looked when he first met her. Etheswitha was more than Strang could ever have hoped for. She was graceful, quick-witted and devoted to him and Sunniva. But she had not been strong. She had been ill for much of their time together. She had borne him four children. Two had been stillborn and one, a boy, had only lived for a few days before succumbing to a terrible cough. Sometimes, in the still of the night, he thought about those tiny babies that had died before they even had names. If it hadn’t been for Sunniva, he would have thought that the gods had cursed him. But then he would see his beautiful daughter and his heart would swell.