There Will Be War Volume IV

by Jerry Pournelle

  Giralda shivered. O my darling boy… if your father prevails, that swine will slay you for spite… and if Withucar should triumph, then still he will slay you lest you grow to avenge your father! And how can we find a way out of that?

  The farmer, Antonius, continued to move his amber jewel and croon above it. Little seemed to happen. One of the thirty Danish longbowmen posted on the platform above the gate slapped his neck, cursing.

  Some of the others looked about in irritation. On the far side of the burg, a warrior yelled in pain. A few men swung their arms wildly. In a moment they were all doing it as frenzy came to the ramparts of Wiht-gara-byrig. The air filled with humming and a haze of minute yellow bodies that stung.

  “Ha-yaa!” Cerdic yelled. “Follow me, and slay till your arms are weary!”

  He ran for the palisade, heavy in his war-gear, feet pounding the earth. Behind him, men lifted scaling ladders and bore them forward, baying war-cries. Some put their backs against the covered ram, gripped its sides and strained to start it moving. The wheels rumbled; the axles shrieked. Arrows flew against it, but not in the concentrated or deadly accurate flights Withucar had counted on.

  Cerdic mounted the bank of earth beyond which lay the fosse, with two feet of water and ooze at the bottom. Men flung spears at him. Cerdic, anticipating, swept his linden shield above his head and sprang aside. Weapons rattled on the shield’s cowhide cover, jarring his arm to the shoulder. One struck into the bank uncomfortably near his foot. He never noticed.

  Beside him, his gesiths trod into the water and rammed the bases of scaling ladders into the muck beneath. These were simply long poles with crossbars lashed to them, but high and strong, they were also muscle-crackingly heavy to lift. From the corner of his eye Cerdic glimpsed Tosti—huge, his pale eyes glaring, the white wolf skin flapping and spattered with mire—grip one of the ladders and heave it into place by himself. And ascend it.

  Cerdic, aided by Lanfrith, manhandled a second ladder into place. Drawing his sword and using his shield for balance, he mounted the rungs. The air about him seethed with bees. He wasn’t stung because he’d smeared his uncovered face and arms with the stinking salve Antonius had brewed in his cauldron—as had more than half Cerdic’s warriors before the salve ran out. Those so protected were first to the attack, and Tosti with them, although he had refused the salve. He went among the defenders with a fury that would have ignored stinging bees had they been the size of sparrows.

  The defenders, too, quickly forgot the insects. A bee sting is nothing compared to a spear. The bees had served their purpose by throwing the defense into confusion until Cerdic’s men could gain the ramparts in a dozen places—almost without losses, which had else been great. Antonius ceased his droning. With swift movements of his hands, he flattened his similitude of the burg into rubbish. There was no more for him to do but watch.

  Cerdic had reached the palisade’s top. Spears assailed him, thudding on his shield, striking his armor. He chopped a spear shaft aside. Bracing his feet on the ladder, he rammed his shield forward, slashed at one man’s leg and got his own over the wall. For precarious heartbeats he stood half on the ladder and half on the ramparts while men raged to destroy him.

  Cerdic plied his sword with a redness over his brain. He got past a painted shield and smote its bearer low on the side between ribs and hip. The leather sark was slashed through. No blood was drawn, but the man doubled over, winded and sickly helpless. Cerdic bulled forward by main strength, shield battering, sword hewing. In a moment he had both feet on his own ramparts again.

  A sword broke on his shield-rim. Cerdic feinted to bring his enemy’s shield down, then slashed open the front of his head. Beside him, the fellow he’d winded was struggling to rise, head thrust far forward as he choked after breath. There was green bile in his beard. Cerdic hewed at the exposed neck. This time the man fell dead. Lanfrith came off the ladder, yelling, and others swarmed after.

  “Clear the ramparts!” Cerdic roared as he cut his way along them. “Clear the ramparts and hold them!”

  His sword flickered, rang, bit. He made remorselessly for the platform above the gate where the Danish bowmen were. Not a few of his warriors lay outside the stockade with arrows in them, and the Danes were now shooting at the ram immediately below. It was spitting distance in literal truth. At that range, with the power of those bows behind them, the arrows went straight through the ram’s ox hide roof. Men were dying beneath it.

  Cerdic warded his face all he could. The Danes were looking for targets and his shield sprouted arrows. The last man between him and the platform swung an ax two-handedly. It split Cerdic’s shield into two; it nigh broke his arm. He staggered. The ax leaped at his thigh. His sword whined over in a red-spattering arc to split knuckles and crack the ax haft. Although his shield was battered to ruin, Cerdic still held the grip and the conical iron boss. He struck with it. The ax-wielder’s jawbone snapped, half his teeth were exposed, and he sagged against the steps that led to the platform. Cerdic killed him. A dozen or twenty feet trod over the body.

  Then they were too close, and the platform too crowded, for archery. The same applied in a measure to sword work. Most of the Danes had heavy, single-edged fighting knives. So did Cerdic. The instant he got a decent hack at someone with his sword, he left it lodged in the warrior’s chine and drew his backup weapon.

  There followed a straining, gasping, stamping melee, stinking of sweat and blood, each man for himself. Several were forced over the edge of the platform. Often as not they went gripping an adversary. The rain of arrows having ended, men began swinging the ram again. It boomed against the gate. The impact vibrated in soles and spines where Cerdic fought. His mouth was full of a stocky Dane’s red beard. He’d stabbed the man many times and was beginning to think he couldn’t be killed. But the big frame shuddered and went limp just as the gate burst.

  Cerdic broke away from the Dane’s death grip. Breathing raggedly, he looked about. The platform above the gate belonged to him. The gate itself hung open drunkenly and the rammers were within. Elsewhere the last resistance was dying fiercely on the ramparts.

  I’ve won, he thought. I’ve done it.

  Not quite yet. Hoarsely, he gave commands. The confusion was replaced by firm control in moments. His rammers made a shield-wall in the gateway. Others did likewise along the ramparts, and Cerdic had some of his men join him on the platform so that a rush might not take him unaware.

  Teg Hengist’s son lay dead. Tosti Fenrir’s-get swayed on his feet, dazed by an ax blow on the helm that would have broken another man’s neck. Cerdic did not feel saddened; it was probably all that had kept the wolf-hearted giant from precipitating a thorough slaughter.

  There’ll be one anyhow if Giralda or the children are hurt.

  Cerdic retrieved his sword. It was notched and had lost its edge. Blood was jellied darkly on the blade. He himself was rankly spattered, his byrnie gashed, some of the gilded iron scales missing. He was sweaty, and his throat cried for drink.

  “Where is Withucar?” he thundered.

  The Saxon limped into view. He showed signs of hard fighting also, but he’d seemingly fled the ramparts when he saw they were unavoidably lost. His men had taken a massed position against the long wall of the eating-hall. They were now outnumbered something like two to one

  “Here.”

  “Where are your hostages!”

  “Within the hall, under trusty ward. Thus are you still where you were before.”

  “Look around you and tell me that! Ha! I have you, traitor. I have you by the throat and you will gasp out your last breath ere I loose my grip.” Cerdic’s voice was a vengeful purr. “Yes, I have you, but you have my wife and children. I made you an offer some days gone because of that. You remember?”

  “I remember.” Withucar looked incredulous. “You are not making it anew?”

  “I am that. If you suppose I mean to stand here and argue back and forth with you over Giralda’s body, you are
misled. I haven’t so much time to spend on you. Best agree, Withucar. Or are you as false to the men you lead as to me, whom you pledged to serve?”

  The men at bay by the long hall murmured, for it was their lives too. Withucar saw that Cerdic had trapped him neatly. His men had fought for him as their chieftain. Now it was for him to repay them in kind. If he did not, they might well throw down their weapons and chance Cerdic’s mercy. They all knew he’d show none if the hostages were harmed. And indeed, single combat now seemed to be Withucar’s only chance.

  “The same terms?”

  Cerdic was too eager to refuse his enemy that. Like a great tawny lynx smelling prey, he sensed what he wanted within his grasp.

  “Aye!” he shouted. “The very same, with one other. Send Giralda and the children to me now, before we fight!”

  Withucar gave him shout for shout. “I’m to trust you?”

  “Why not? I never made an oath to you and broke it!”

  That stung more fiercely than Antonius’s bees because it was too true. Withucar paled, then reddened.

  “Bring them out!” he snarled to his henchmen. “We will see what a half-Jute’s word is good for!”

  Cerdic saw them led forth. He’d have croaked nonsense and run to them were he not his gesiths’ war-leader with work still to finish and had he not been aware of Withucar’s sneering gaze. The woman’s hair wavered in his sight like a torch, as it had the first time he had set eyes on her in her father’s hall—she the daughter of a Jutish chieftain of royal descent. How fearlessly Cynric trod beside her! A show, of course, abetted by unwillingness to shame his parents—but how many boys his age could have done as much? One of Withucar’s traitors growled and stamped his foot to make the atheling jump. Rage burned in Cerdic. He marked that man’s visage well lest they should ever cross paths in the future.

  Then they were safe on the platform. Cerdic seized Giralda in his arms. Let Withucar stare his fill and be cursed! She held him equal-strongly and returned his kiss with a hunger like starvation, caring no whit for the hardness of his byrnie or the blood-reek upon him. The children jostled for his attention as children will. Fain’s voice carried when she said, “What did you fetch me home?”

  Cerdic sat her on his knee and began a game, making her guess.

  “By Wotan!” roared Withucar. “This burg has not again become your home yet, Cerdic! Suppose you step down here and fight me before you take it on yourself to dandle your brats!”

  Cerdic grinned broadly and stood. Fain now sat in the crook of his arm, her hands on his mailed shoulder. Hair as red as her mother’s blew wild.

  “I am going to rest a while,” Cerdic said, “and wet my throat.” He passed his sword to Lanfrith. “Meantime I’ll let my blade be cleaned and sharpened, just for you. Never fret, Withucar. Enough and to spare of the afternoon is left. It won’t be dusk before we settle this.”

  Ulfcetel passed him a brimming ale-horn. He smacked his lips and drank it steadily until its contents were a memory, save for foam in his mustache. The second he waved away, although he could gladly have emptied it too. Nor did he eat. It was unwisdom to fight on a full belly.

  The grindstone ended its song. Lanfrith brought back the heavy sword with its edges shining. Cerdic tried it by hewing into the top of one of the palisade logs and then smiled with baleful satisfaction at the result.

  “Good lad,” he said. “This will do.” To Giralda he said, “I’ll not fall, my beautiful. Not to such as Withucar. But if it could happen, I’d command you to see that my word was kept.”

  “And let him live?” Her smile wavered a little, but nonetheless, it was as fierce as Cerdic’s own. “Then am I glad it cannot happen. Slay him, Cerdic!”

  “Indeed I will.” The big man swaggered down from the platform and thence from the ramparts. Withucar awaited him. All sensations seemed clearer, from the gold-yellow hue of the hall’s thatch to the smells of dunghill and midden and thickening blood. High, clean, untouched, a wind drove clouds across the sky.

  “He carries no shield!” Giralda cried.

  “He fights without one,” Ulfcetel spoke bluntly, and yet his voice held compassion. “Those are the terms.”

  “No! This is madness!” Giralda rounded on them, raging. “You, his companions, sworn to him—you let him do this? You had not the manhood to protect him even from himself? Now may your luck and all the gods forsake you!”

  “Enough,” the steersman said harshly. “I’d not have had him do this, but it wasn’t my wife and children Withucar held.”

  Giralda gripped her face between her hands so wildly that her nails drew blood.

  Withucar had taken a new shield, and it untouched. The linden orb had been painted red and bore the figure of a raven, shown as sitting on the iron boss. The bird’s pose was restless, ready to fly.

  Cerdic’s battle-experienced eyes took note of other things: the number and spacing of rivets that held the boss in place, the shield-rim’s heavy leather binding, the thickness and probable weight of the linden wood. It all mattered, though none of it so much as Withucar’s prowess.

  “Was your meeting with Giralda happy?” the Saxon asked. “Did she maybe tell you that her howls of joy in my bed were heard clear to the south cliffs? Or that after the second time, I had to fend her off? Oh, you’d find her a changed woman—if you were going to live.”

  Cerdic said contemptuously, “You talk a good lay. You talk a good fight too. I’ve heard you. Now let us see.”

  Withucar trod forward. His sword slanted back over his shoulder; the red shield covered him from chin to groin. Their swords belled together. The shield turned a little, and Withucar drove it slanting, smashing down at the side of Cerdic’s knee. Cerdic straightened that leg smartly to step the other way. He moved into a shrewd cut from his enemy and had to check it, sword on sword once more. The iron shield-boss slammed cruelly into his side. Even through scale and leather and heavy tunic, it jolted breath sickly from the lung. Cerdic backed three swift paces, circling. This was the tactic, then. Occupy sword with sword, meanwhile battering with the shield until flesh could no longer endure it. Not bad. But Cerdic’s left hand was free. It opposed Withucar’s sword-hand, of course—and yet by his own chosen tactic, Withucar’s sword-hand would be engaged a deal of the time.

  Clash of metal! Stamp and shuffle of hide-shod feet!

  The swords joined again, a diagonal cross ablaze with light. Cerdic forced the cross from erect to horizontal, his blade screeching down the length of Withucar’s to split the wooden guard. Enduring the slam of the shield-boss, he held his enemy’s sword engaged—and seizing Withucar’s sword-wrist with his left hand, Cerdic freed his own weapon.

  The shield flashed edge-on between them, rushing to break the bones of Cerdic’s forearm. He threw that hand high, raising Withucar’s with it. The shield missed. Cerdic chopped down at the hurtling edge. He cut through the leather binding and notched the wood, that was all. The shield had been made in two layers, with the grain running in opposite ways. One blow could not split it.

  Withucar used his knee. Cerdic lifted a thigh in time to take the impact, but it cost him balance. Withucar rammed him with the shield-boss, hurling him back. The two men broke apart.

  The death fight went on.

  I’ll stomach no more of this, Giralda thought.

  She glanced about. Almost at once she saw a spear resting forgotten against the rampart. She could throw one, strongly and straight. Yet Withucar made a nigh-invulnerable target. His neck was too small a mark. Besides, it was constantly moving. His byrnie shielded his torso. That left the legs.

  She couldn’t miss those.

  Yes! It wouldn’t be instantly fatal, but all she had to do was to make him stumble. Cerdic would do the rest. His blood heated by the fight, he’d never stop to think if it was honorable or not. When he knew what had happened he’d be more than angry. He’d be enraged… well, let him be! She wasn’t afraid of his rages, and he’d be alive.

  She
slipped into the background. All there had eyes for nothing but the fight… as Giralda supposed. Her fingers closed on the spear shaft.

  Much larger fingers closed on her wrist. The strength of them was terrifying. Giralda looked up into a coldly handsome face and a pair of ice-pale eyes, shadowed under the scalp and muzzle of a wolf skin.

  No!

  Of all men, this one!

  “Let me go, you oaf!”

  Tosti Fenrir’s-get removed the spear from her hand. “Be quiet,” he said calmly. “The fight goes to its fated end, and none may meddle.”

  Giralda struggled. Tosti took her by both of her upper arms and held her in a grip that warned he could splinter her bones if he chose. Giralda did not heed the warning. In this extremity she cared for neither honor nor fate—and she knew in hatred that they did not concern Tosti either. He was simply enjoying the fight.

  She raged, kicked, tried to bite, promised riches, threatened, begged, and finally cursed Tosti Fenrir’s-get as few had ever ventured to do. She wondered afterward why he hadn’t just cuffed her senseless. She supposed it had suited his cruel humor to make her watch the combat.

  Cerdic had suffered four small wounds. Although none were disabling, they were painful and they bled. He knew now that he was not going to get past the red shield without a shield of his own. Withucar was too skilled.

  Then he must reduce the shield or destroy it.

  Recklessly Cerdic hewed, spending his strength because there was no more reason to hoard it. The swords chimed and clashed. Cerdic used his unweaponed left arm as bait, tempting Withucar to strike at it. Barely in time he snatched it aside and cut strongly into the shield-rim. A segment of the top layer of wood split straight across, decapitating the painted raven. Then Cerdic had to jump smartly backward to avoid his enemy’s sword. He felt the wind of that stroke. Had he been fresh, he could have disabled Withucar’s sword-arm then; but both men were slowing. They were not made of unfeeling iron. Cerdic missed the chance.

  Wielding his glaive two-handed, he rained blows on Withucar’s sword until his own hands stung. The Saxon’s single grip must surely be numbed. Chancing all, Cerdic swung two mighty strokes on Withucar’s shield, calculating them as nicely as he could with hot brain and sweat-blurred eyes. Then Withucar’s sword caught Cerdic over the ribs, on his left side. He croaked; he reeled. And struck two-handed again. Withucar’s sword was knocked from his grasp. A wild yell went up.