“Well done, Mel Coluim,” Melcorka approved. “You must have a couple of thousand men there, fewer than Erik but you're defending your homeland, and your warriors have a history of victory.”
“Who are you talking to, Melcorka?” Fergus asked.
“The world, Fergus, if it cares to listen. Come and join me, and I will show you the army of the High King.”
Holding the boy safe on a high bough, Melcorka pointed out both armies, giving him an insight into the workings of kings. “You see, Fergus? Mael Coluim is sending out his horsemen as scouts, and camping for the night.”
Melcorka watched as the Albans' campfires twinkled cheerfully on the flat plain. Carrying the flagging Fergus, Melcorka descended from her tree and trotted to the Alban camp.
Chapter Thirty
“I seek the king,” Melcorka said to the nervous sentries. “I am Melcorka Nic Bearnas, known as the Swordswoman.”
“Back there.” The sentry carried a long spear. He jerked his thumb behind him. “Did you see any sign of the Norse?”
“Aye. Erik Egilsson is camped on Culbin Sands.”
Mael Coluim sat beside an open fire with MacBain at his side and his chiefs and lords around him. “You sent good warning, Swordswoman,” the king said as Melcorka approached, with the sleeping Fergus in her arms. “My scouts tell me that the Norse camp is on the shifting Sands of Culbin.”
“That is where they are, your Grace,” Melcorka confirmed.
“Tell me more,” the king commanded. “How many men? Who commands them? Is it King Cnut of Denmark or the Butcher?”
“There are between two and a half and three thousand,” Melcorka said, “a mixture of veterans, mercenaries and foolish youths, with Erik Egilsson in command.”
Mael Coluim grunted, taking a bite from an apple. “Erik has a larger army than mine. There will be hard knocks tomorrow, then.”
“I fear so,” Melcorka said.
“Will you be joining us?” Mael Coluim asked. “I could order you to, and your sword will be handy.”
“I will join you and willing,” Melcorka said. “I will face Erik Egilsson.”
“Who”s the young lad?” MacBain gestured to Fergus. “Is that your son?”
Melcorka shook her head. “This is Fergus. Erik orphaned him.” She held Fergus close.
“I will look after him.” A matronly woman took the sleeping boy from Melcorka”s arms. “I have three already.”
“He has two younger brothers,” Melcorka said.
“The more, the merrier,” the woman said with a smile. She gave Melcorka a sideways look. “You'll have your own children to care for, Swordswoman, once you put away that foolish sword.
“You should let me kill this Erik,” MacBain said. “He's killed Finleac and Black Duncan. I should be next to test his Legbiter.”
“Leave him to Melcorka, MacBain,” Mael Coluim said. “She has a sword to match his.”
“My sword is as good as any.” MacBain drew his blade with a surprising flourish. “It has been inside many Norsemen, and a few Northumbrians and Danes as well.” Weak sunlight reflected from the Clach Bhuaidh.
“Erik Egilsson is unlike any other man you have fought,” Melcorka warned.
“And MacBain is unlike any Alban he has fought,” MacBain responded, smiling. “I know your reputation, Swordswoman, and how you defeated three Danes at Carham fight, but I also know Erik bested you last time.” He pointed at the vivid white scars on Melcorka's thighs. “I will try to save you from more souvenirs of Erik's sword.”
“I cannot stop you, MacBain,” Melcorka said. “And I wish you victory.”
“Then that is agreed.” Mael Coluim sounded happy with the arrangement. “You can stand by, Swordswoman. If Erik is victorious, then you can fight him next, although I seem to be losing my champions man by man.”
“I hope that MacBain defeats him.” Melcorka looked around. “Has anybody seen Bradan? I thought he would have been here.”
“Bradan the Wanderer?” MacBain said. “I have not seen him around the camp. Your man Drostan may know – he brought us a message from Bradan.”
“Thank you.” Nodding to the king, Melcorka searched the camp until she found Drostan sitting in a circle of Pictish warriors around a fire. “Have you seen Bradan in the camp?”
Drostan lowered the horn of mead from his lips. “Bradan? Did he not send news to you, Melcorka?”
“I have heard nothing from him for days,” Melcorka said.
Drostan stood, wiping his lips. “Bradan has left, Melcorka. As soon as I told him the Norse fleet had landed in Findhorn Bay, he headed east and north at a great speed.”
“North?” Melcorka felt her heart begin to race. “Do you know where he was headed?”
“No, Melcorka.” Drostan shook his head. “I thought he was trying to escape the fighting. He is a man of peace, not of war.”
“I know what Bradan is,” Melcorka said sharply. “I cannot think why he would leave without telling me.”
Drostan shrugged. “Perhaps Astrid might know. She was also looking for him.”
“Where is she now?” Melcorka asked.
“I don't know.” Drostan sipped at his mead. “She followed after him. Maybe she found him.”
“Maybe she did,” Melcorka said. “I am sure Bradan will turn up. He's old enough and ugly enough to look after himself.” Yet she thought of Bradan with Astrid and wondered if he would ever return.
No. That was a foolish thing to think.
Hefting Defender, Melcorka sighed. This fight might be her last. After this battle, she might lie dead on the Sands of Culbin, the natural end of any warrior. If she were Norse, she would expect an afterlife in the Halls of Valhalla, but as a follower of Christ, Melcorka was unsure if St Peter would accept her into Heaven, or if her life of swordplay would condemn her to another, much less pleasant place.
Bradan? Where are you?
That night, Melcorka slept fitfully, waking before dawn to reach for the space beside her. Melcorka was not the first awake, for men were already polishing their swords or sharpening their spears, checking their chain mail for rust or making pacts with comrades they had known for years.
“If I'm badly wounded, kill me clean and don't leave me for the crows to peck.”
“Aye, I'll do that if you do the same for me.”
“Guard my back, Toshie and I'll guard yours.”
“If you're killed, Kenny, can I get your silver arm band?”
“Aye, I'll not need it. You can have the wife as well.”
“Och, I”ve already had her, Kenny.” Followed by a burst of laughter.
Other men stood in silence, staring at the sky, or openly prayed for divine assistance to survive the day. The younger ones boasted of the deeds they would perform and the Norsemen they would kill, while grey-bearded veterans formed small groups and spoke of the horror to come and wondering if their failing strength would be sufficient. A few passed bottles and flasks around and one young man was openly crying in fear.
MacBain tramped up to Melcorka. “Has your man Bradan turned up, yet?”
“Not yet,” Melcorka forced a smile. “He'll come in good time.”
“Maybe.” MacBain tested the swing of his sword, ensured the dirk was loose under his arm and the skean dhu – the black-knife – was safe against his ankle. “I hope so, Melcorka. I rather liked that solemn man.”
“May God go with you today, MacBain,” Melcorka said.
“May he guide your arms and protect your back,” MacBain returned.
They stood side by side at the edge of the camp, comrades who had not known each other until recently, yet who would risk their lives in battle within a few hours.
“Only veterans know how hellish a battle is,” MacBain said. “Youngsters think it's all glamour, and poets talk of the glory,” he shook his head. “Some day there will be no more wars.”
“Aye, some day,” Melcorka said. “I doubt we'll see that day in our lifetimes.”
> “I think you are right,” MacBain said. “Maybe our children will, or our grandchildren.”
The sound of blowing horns broke the morning, with loud chants from the Norse camp only a mile away to the north.
“Odin! Odin!”
“Odin claims you, men of Alba! Odin claims you!”
“They are awake,” MacBain said. “We'd best get the men organised, Melcorka.”
“Aye.” Melcorka nodded. “God save us all.”
* * *
“Melcorka!” The High King shouted. “Go you and look on our enemy. See what they are doing. You are the only one among us who knows Erik Egilsson by sight.”
Once again, Melcorka scrambled up a tree to spy on the invaders. “They've formed into battle lines,” she reported. “Waiting for us, with Erik in front and that evil little grey man at his side.”
“How many battle lines?” MacBain shouted.
“Two triple lines,” Melcorka said, “with a gap of about 300 paces in between. Erik is in the centre of the gap.”
“They hope to catch us between their formations,” MacBain said, “so we fight on two sides simultaneously. They are content to wait for us to come to them. Does Erik have bodyguards with him? House carls, Berserkers?”
“He is standing between the two formations, with his servant at his side.”
“I will see him shortly.” MacBain touched the Clach Bhuaidh. “And shortly after, he will be dead.”
Melcorka looked northward, hoping to see Bradan striding towards her with his staff in his hands and his serene, serious eyes noticing everything. Instead, she saw something much more alarming. “There is another army approaching us.”
“What sort of army?” Mael Coluim asked. “It had better not be Jarl Thorfinn on my lands.”
“It is not Thorfinn,” Melcorka said. “It is much worse.”
“Who?”
“The forces of evil are coming,” Melcorka said, as the king began to laboriously climb the tree.
“Let me see. Where?”
“There, on the coast to the north west.” The army came in an undisciplined mob, some were the surviving cat-men of Dun Dreggan, moving now on all fours, now walking on two legs, with a gaggle of cat-women at their side. Gliding with them were the hooded grey men of the mist, and then the masked moss-men, moving clumsily and carrying crude weapons. In the rear came the forest cannibals, keeping close together in this unfamiliar environment.
“About 500 of them.” Mael Coluim sounded calm. “And hardly a warrior worthy of the name. If they are flesh, they will bleed, and if they bleed, we can kill them.”
“With that force, Erik's men outnumber us three to two.” Melcorka said. “And I am not sure if these grey men are flesh, or if they can bleed.”
“Then we will have to fight all the harder,” the king said, climbing back down the tree. “Form up!” He shouted. “Column of march! We are facing two enemies, lads, so keep together and remember our war cry: Aigha Bas – battle and die.”
“Aigha Bas!” The cry was taken up across the Alban camp. “Aigha Bas!”
The war-pipes began their skirl as men formed into a column, and the mounted men pushed out from the flanks. An eager young man lifted the blue boar banner as two stout men lifted long horns and blew a blast that reverberated into the sky and made women cover their ears.
“You lads!” Mael Coluim pointed to a troop of border cavalry. “Ride out west until you see an army advancing along the shore. Harass them and slow them down as best you can.”
“Yes, your Grace!” The captain of the troop seemed quite happy to trot westward and pit his 30 men against an un-numbered host of the enemy.
As the army formed up, Melcorka looked around, still hoping that Bradan would join her. He did not. They marched on, slow-footed to keep formation, with Norse horns answering the scream of the pipes, and raucous cries coming from the direction of Culbin sands. As they neared the enemy, Melcorka could easily make out the words of the Norsemen.
“Odin! Odin! Odin!”
“Odin claims you, men of Alba! Odin claims you!”
“We are fighting pagans then,” MacBain said. “I thought the Norse, Danes and Angles were all converted to Christianity.”
“It seems they are still pagan under a thin veneer,” Melcorka said.
MacBain touched the Clach Bhuaidh. “Then, when they die, they will descend to hell,” he said simply.
Culbin Sands was a vast expanse of land, mostly open with sandy dunes, but interspersed with patches of woodland, small farms and settlements, now all abandoned through fear of Erik's Norsemen.
“That is the sand where I shall die,” Melcorka said quietly, “and where Bradan will walk away with Astrid.”
With his flanks resting on dense copses of woodland, Erik had set his army in two triple lines, three hundred paces apart and with banners flapping above. In between, Erik stood, looking very relaxed and with his grey-clad servant at his side. “Keep in column,” Mael Coluim ordered. “Archers, slingmen, spearmen, to the front!”
At the sight of the Albans, the Norse gave a great roar and began to clatter their swords against their shields, in a regular beat that matched their constant chanting.
“Odin! Odin! Odin!”
“Aigha Bas!” The Albans responded. “Aigha Bas!”
The Norse let loose a volley of arrows that rose high, wavered and came down amongst the Alban ranks, hitting a score of men. Melcorka saw one warrior pluck an arrow from his leather jacket, turn it around and hurl it back at the Norse. MacBain stood slightly in front of the battle-column, scorning the spears and arrows of the enemy.
“Form a wedge!” Mael Coluim ordered, positioning himself at the front of his men. “Archers and spearmen to the left flank!”
The men moved at once, a hundred skirmishers facing 10 times that number of Norsemen while the main Alban army formed a wedge whose point aimed directly at Erik. The blue boar growled forward, now beside the serene blue-and-white of the saltire. A volley of Norse spears, longer than a tall man and as thick as a woman's wrist, flew right over the Alban ranks. The Norse battle cry altered.
“Odin claims you!” They shouted as their spears arced overhead. “Odin claims you!”
“The Norse claim anybody underneath the passage of their spears,” Melcorka explained.
MacBain grinned. “Do they indeed? Aigha bas!” He shouted through powerful lungs. “Aigha bas!”
The Albans tramped forward, spears thrusting, feet sinking ankle-deep in the shifting sands, men shoulder to shoulder. Men fell, for their comrades to step over them or push them out of the column. The pipes screamed, war-horns blared, and men's grunts and roars filled the air beneath the constant hiss of falling arrows.
“They're not wavering,” a man shouted.
“Neither are we!” MacBain roared. “Aigha bas!”
The Alban wedge aimed directly at Erik until they were only 40 paces away, when Mael Coluim altered his angle of attack, directing it at the Norse formation on the Alban right. While the spearmen and archers kept the second Norse battle line busy, Mael Coluim rammed straight into the first. Stepping aside from the main army, MacBain pursued his personal battle.
“You are mine, Erik Egilsson!” MacBain roared, drawing his sword and running forward.
“Well met, dead man!” Erik waited for the attack, while Melcorka watched, holding Defender. She batted away a spear, dodged an arrow and tried to ignore everything except the combat between Erik and MacBain. She knew that the High King could use her sword but, in her mind, defeating Erik would take the sting from the invasion.
MacBain was no mere brawler, but a skilled man who fought with cunning. He feinted and slashed, stopped halfway, altered his pattern of attack and made Erik withdraw a step or two. Again, sunlight reflected on the Clach Bhuaidh, giving a soft internal glow to the crystal.
“You fight well,” Erik acknowledged, “for a dead man.”
Not wasting breath on speech, MacBain continued to pr
ess, pushing with his shield, ducking low to slash at Erik's legs, and then thrusting high at his eyes before aiming for his kidneys. Erik took another step back, no longer taunting as he blocked with his spiked shield and parried with Legbiter. Melcorka saw him glance at the grey man, who opened the top of his bag and peered inside, although, at what, Melcorka did not know. She edged closer, confident that the grey man was key to Erik's success.
* * *
The Alban wedge was pushing hard at the right half of the Norse army, bending the battle-line into a great horseshoe. Swords and axes rose and fell on to heads and limbs while spears stabbed into chests, stomachs and groins, men fell, groaning or screaming as the carnage continued. On the left, the Alban skirmishers fired and dodged the Norse arrows and spears. The left-hand Norse battle line did not move to help its companions, while MacBain pushed Erik back, step by step. As MacBain advanced, the Clach Bhuaidh glowed with its internal power.
“Things are looking good,” Melcorka said to herself. “Perhaps MacBain and his Stone of Victory can defeat Erik.” She looked anxiously to the west, searching for the arrival of the forces of evil.
For a few moments, Melcorka believed she would not be needed. She thought that MacBain would defeat Erik in straight combat, the king's army would break the Norse, and the invasion would end here. For a few moments, Melcorka nearly relaxed, until the grey man put his hand inside the bag he carried. That simple movement seemed to give new life to Erik. He had been defending, but now went on the offensive. With Legbiter parrying all MacBain's thrusts and slashes, Erik seemed to know what Mael Coluim's champion would do before he attacked. Simultaneously, the Clach Bhuaidh dimmed, as if something was draining its power.
“Odin!” Both halves of the Norse army roared. “Odin!” The left half lifted their shields and began to edge forward with slow, methodical steps.
Now it was Erik who pushed forward and MacBain who was on the defensive, backing away pace by pace with the Norseman laughing, slashing and thrusting with a speed that Melcorka had never seen before.
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