Bernard Cornwell - Death of Kings

‘Swords in hand.’

Rypere was dead, I had not seen him die, but I saw a Dane hauling the mail from his skinny body. ‘He was a good man,’ I said.

Osferth found us. He was usually so neat, so immaculately dressed, but his mail was torn and his cloak was shredded, and his eyes wild. His helmet had a great dent in its crown, yet he seemed unhurt. ‘Let me fight along with you, lord,’ he said.

‘For ever,’ I told him. Osferth’s cross was still aloft at the centre of our circle, and a priest was calling that God and Saint Lucy would work a miracle, that we would win, that we would live, and I let him preach on because he was saying what men needed to hear.

Jarl Sigurd pushed into the Danish shield wall opposite me. He carried a massive war axe, wide-bladed, and on either side of him were spearmen. Their job was to hold me still while he hacked me to death. I had a new shield, one that showed the crossed swords of Ealdorman Sigelf. ‘Has anyone seen Sigebriht?’ I asked.

‘He’s dead,’ Osferth said.

‘You’re sure?’

‘I killed him, lord.’

I laughed. We had killed so many of the enemy’s leaders, though Sigurd and Æthelwold lived, and they had power enough to crush us and then defeat Edward’s army and so put Æthelwold on Alfred’s throne. ‘Do you remember what Beornnoth said?’ I asked Finan.

‘Should I, lord?’

‘He wanted to know how the story ended,’ I said. ‘I’d like to know that too.’

‘Ours ends here,’ Finan said, and made the sign of the cross with the hilt of his sword.

And the Danes came again.

They came slowly. Men do not want to die at the moment of victory. They want to enjoy the triumph, to share the wealth that winning brings, and so they came steadily, keeping their shields tight-locked.

Someone in our ranks began to sing. It was a Christian song, perhaps a psalm, and most of the men took up the tune, which made me think of my eldest son, and what a bad father I had been, and I wondered if he would be proud of my death. The Danes were beating blades and spear-hafts against their shields. Most of those shields were broken, axe-split, splintered. Men were bloodied, blood of the foemen. Battle in the morning. I was tired, and looking up at the rain clouds, thought this was a bad place to die. But we do not choose our deaths. The Norns do that at the foot of Yggdrasil and I imagined one of those three Fates holding the shears above my thread. She was ready to cut, and all that mattered now was to keep tight hold of my sword so that the winged women would take me to Valhalla’s feasting-hall.

I watched the Danes shouting at us. I did not hear them, not because I was out of earshot, but because the world seemed strangely silent again. A heron came out of the mist and flew overhead and I distinctly heard the heavy beat of its wings, but I did not hear the insults of my enemies. Plant your feet square, overlap the shield, watch the enemy’s blade, be ready to counter-strike. There was pain on my right hip, which I only just noticed. Had I been wounded? I dared not look because the Danes were close and I was watching the two spear tips, knowing they would strike the right-hand side of my shield to force it back and let Sigurd come from my left. I met Sigurd’s eyes and we stared at each other and then the spears came.

They hurled dozens of spears from their rear ranks, heavy spears arcing over their front ranks to crash hard into our shields. At that moment a man in the front rank must crouch to let the shield protect him, and the Danes charged as they saw us go down. ‘Up!’ I shouted, my shield heavy with two spears. My men were screaming in rage, and the Danes beat into us, shrieking their war cries, hacking with axes, and we pushed back, the two lines locked, heaving. It was a pushing match, but we were only three ranks and the Danes were at least six, and they were driving us back. I tried to skewer Wasp-Sting forward, and her blade struck a shield. Sigurd was trying to reach me, screaming and shouting, but the flow of men forced him away from me. A Dane, open-mouthed and with a beard riddled with blood, hacked an axe at Finan’s shield and I tried to slide Wasp-Sting over my own shield into his face, but another blade deflected mine. We were being forced back, the enemy so close we could smell the ale on their breath. And then the next charge came.

It came from our left, from the south, horsemen crashing up the Roman road with spears levelled and a dragon banner flying. Horsemen from the small mist, horsemen who screamed their challenge as they spurred into the rearward ranks of the enemy. ‘Wessex!’ they shouted, ‘Edward and Wessex!’ I saw the close-packed Danish ranks judder and shift under the impact, and the second rank of the oncoming horsemen had swords that they hacked down at the enemy, and that enemy saw yet more horsemen coming, bright-mailed horsemen in the dawn, and the new flags showed crosses and saints and dragons and the Danes were breaking, running back to the protection of the ditch.

‘Forward!’ I shouted, and I felt the pressure of the Danish attack ease and I bellowed at my men to thrust into them, to kill the bastards, and we screamed like men released from death’s valley as we charged them. Sigurd vanished, protected by his men. I hacked at the bloody-bearded Dane with Wasp-Sting, but the pressure of men swept him off to my right and the Danes ahead were breaking, horsemen among them, swords falling, spears striking, and Steapa was there, huge and angry, snarling at his enemy, using his sword like a butcher’s cleaver, his stallion biting and kicking, wheeling and trampling. I guessed Steapa’s force was small, maybe no more than four or five hundred men, but it had panicked the Danes by attacking their rear ranks, yet it would not be long before they recovered and came back to the assault.

‘Get back!’ Steapa roared at me, pointing his red sword south. ‘Go back now!’

‘Fetch the wounded!’ I shouted at my men. More horsemen came, helmets bright in the grey daylight, spear-blades like silver death, swords striking down at running Danes. Our men were carrying the wounded south, away from the enemy, and in front of us were the bodies of the dead and dying, and Steapa’s horsemen were reforming their ranks, all but one, who put spurs to his stallion and galloped across our front and I saw him crouching low over the beast’s black mane, and I recognised him and dropped Wasp-Sting to pick up a fallen spear. It was heavy, but I launched it hard and it flew between the horse’s legs and brought it down, and I heard the man scream in fright as he thumped onto the wet grass and the horse was thrashing its legs as it tried to stand, and the rider’s foot was caught in the stirrup. I drew Serpent-Breath, ran to him and kicked the stirrup free. ‘Edward is king,’ I said to the man.

‘Help me!’ His horse was in the grasp of one of my men, and now he tried to stand, but I kicked him down. ‘Help me, Uhtred,’ he said.

‘I have helped you all your life,’ I said, ‘all your miserable life, and now Edward is king.’

‘No,’ he said, ‘no!’

He was not denying his cousin’s kingship, but the threat of my sword. I shuddered with anger as I drove Serpent-Breath down. I drove it at his breast and that great blade tore through his mail, forcing the shattered links down through his breastbone and ribs and right into his rotten heart that exploded under the steel’s thrust. He screamed still, and still I plunged that blade down, and the scream dribbled away to a gasp and I held Serpent-Breath there, watching his life leak away into the East Anglian soil.

So Æthelwold was dead, and Finan, who had rescued Wasp-Sting, plucked my arm. ‘Come, lord, come!’ he said. The Danes were shouting again, and we ran, protected by the horsemen, and soon there were more horsemen in the mist and I knew Edward’s army had come, but neither he nor the leaderless Danes wanted a fight. The Danes had the protection of the ditch now, they were in their shield wall, but they were not marching on Lundene.