James Aitcheson - Knights of the Hawk

Worse was to come for Haakon, too. Some of his followers had decided their lives were worth more than their oaths to their lord, for suddenly they were breaking and running. They hadn’t been expecting a battle this morning; they had no stomach for the struggle, nor in truth were they in any fit state to wield a blade, and their nerve was failing them. Their side still held the advantage in numbers but, as I’d found, numbers alone will not win a battle. Confidence is everything, and theirs had been shattered. Where bloodlust and battle-fury had reigned, now there was only fear. And just as one man’s resolve can provide inspiration for his sword-brothers, and make their hearts swell with belief both in themselves and their cause, fear can do the opposite. So it was then. Man by man, the enemy host crumbled. As each spear-Dane saw his companion deserting his side, abandoning the struggle, so he too realised his efforts were in vain. He saw the hordes of Englishmen and Normans bearing down on him with sharpened steel in their hands and death in their eyes, and he fled, spreading his panic in turn to the next man and the next and the next, until, like sparrows fleeing the hawk’s shadow, suddenly the enemy were scattering, running anywhere they could, so long as it was away from their foes.

Into that tumult, roaring, swearing death upon them, invoking God and all the saints to aid us in the slaughter of our enemies, Magnus and I charged, with the rest of our small army behind us. On horse and on foot, men and women alike, we hurled ourselves against the enemy tide, adding our numbers to those of our allies, striking out to left and right, losing ourselves to anger, to the wills of our blades, revelling in the joy of the kill. Over the heads of the enemy I glimpsed the dragon banner on the move, heading further inland, across the boggy valley to the higher ground and the safety of the woods that lay at the heart of the island. Somehow Haakon had managed to break out from the midst of the Englishmen and Frenchmen surrounding him. I made out his gleaming mail, bright beneath the morning sun, as he struck out with only his standard-bearer and a bare handful of his loyal huscarls for protection. They were on foot, having clearly lost their horses during the fighting, and were now running like the rest of their countrymen. Like cravens.

We had done it. Hard though it was to believe, we had done it. In every direction I turned, the rout was under way. Haakon had been not just crushed but humiliated.

‘Lord!’

I glanced about, saw Pons waving to me, his sword in one hand, his helmet in the other. Blood was smeared across the front of his hauberk, his hair was flattened against his head, and there was a broad grin on his grimy face. Some fifty paces further away, Wace and Eudo and their knights had managed to surround a group of Haakon’s huscarls, and I took them for such because of the long-handled axes that they each bore. These they now threw down on the ground as a sign of their surrender.

‘Where’s Serlo?’ I asked Pons. ‘Dweorg? Sceota?’

‘I don’t know, lord. I lost sight of them during the fighting.’

I glanced about, but could not spot them anywhere. I could only hope Serlo was all right.

‘We need to get after Haakon,’ I said. ‘We need to finish this.’

‘He won’t get far,’ Pons replied. ‘Where can he possibly go?’

He had a point. Even if the Dane did escape into the woods, sooner or later he would have to show himself if he didn’t want to starve. When he did, we would be ready, waiting to cut him and his retainers down. He had fought and he had lost, and he would die by one means or another, sooner or later.

At the same time, though, I knew I wouldn’t be able to rest until that murderer, that defiler, that vile heathen lay lifeless with my sword buried in his gut. For three years already I’d thirsted for justice. No longer was I to be denied.

I glanced at Magnus, and he at me, and saw that he was of the same mind.

‘Vengeance,’ he said.

I nodded in agreement. Wheeling about, I coaxed my horse into first a canter and then a gallop, drawing all the speed I could from his legs as we took off across that field of death in pursuit of Haakon and his band. All around rose the familiar battle-stench of blood and shit and mud and piss and horse dung and vomit, all intermingled.

‘Haakon,’ Magnus yelled, trying to catch his attention as we left the scattered, crimson-soaked corpses behind us and charged across thick tufts of grass. The Dane’s standard-bearer had at last thrown down the cumbersome banner and we rode over it, trampling the once-proud dragon and axe into the mud.

‘Come and face us, you whoreson,’ I called out. ‘You can’t run from us!’

The ground was soft and once or twice my mount almost stumbled, but nevertheless we were quickly gaining on them. They were five in number: his erstwhile standard-bearer, a fair-haired boy who could not have seen any more than twelve summers; his three hearth-troops; and, lagging a little behind them, the Dane himself, half running and half limping in a way that suggested he must have been wounded in the battle. They still had a few hundred paces to go until they reached the safety of the trees, and they must have been beginning to doubt whether they could manage it before we fell upon them.

To my flank there came a piercing shriek and a yell. Magnus’s horse must have tripped, for I glanced over my shoulder and saw it had gone down, and he with it. Hooves flailed and turf flew, and in the midst of it all the Englishman was struggling to extricate himself from the saddle.

‘Magnus!’ I said, but he didn’t seem to hear me. He had other things to worry about.

As did I. Brief thoughts of going back to help the Englishman were swiftly forgotten. Something much more important was at stake. It fell to me now to kill the Dane, to claim revenge on behalf of us both. That was the promise I’d made myself. Here was my chance to make good on it.

‘Haakon!’ I roared.

With every heartbeat I was growing closer, while the clash of arms and the shouts of men were growing more distant. He couldn’t ignore me any longer. At the sound of his name this time he stopped and turned to face me. Even though the nasal-guard of my helmet obscured my face, he must have recognised me.

He must have seen, too, that there was no longer any use in running. Fixing his gaze upon me, he drew his bloodied sword and stood his ground as I charged towards him. He realised that his time had come, but he was proud. I’d heard long ago that amongst the heathens to die without a weapon in one’s hand was the worst dishonour, for it meant they would not be permitted to dine with their gods in whatever afterlife it was they believed in. Whether that was true or not, and whether that thought was in his mind, I don’t know. More probably, like any man whose life had been spent travelling the sword-path, he considered it nobler to go to his grave fighting, a warrior to the end, rather than suffer the coward’s death and be cut down from behind.

A howl left his lips as he ran, staggering, at me, his sword raised high, his golden arm-rings shining. His braid had come loose and his greying hair flew behind him. He realised, I think, that I was responsible for burning his hall, for destroying everything he had spent so many years fighting to gain. He knew now what I had felt that night at Dunholm, when so much had been taken from me, when my own world had crumbled about me.

Our blades clashed with a shriek of steel, and then I was past him, turning sharply before coming at him again. I parried the blow he aimed at my horse’s neck, and the one after that, and the one after that, trusting in the steel not to shear, all the while waiting for my opportunity to come, as I knew it must. Waiting for him to give me the opening I needed. Blood trickled from a gash at his hip, and each movement he made seemed unsteadier than the last. He was slow to turn, and slower still between each sword-stroke.