Robert Low - The Whale Road

But when morning did come, we had hardly blown life back into the fire embers, barely had time for a stretch and a fart, before the horsemen appeared on the steppe above the balky and everyone sprinted for weapons and armour.

15 This time, they were heavy horse, men in armour, with spears held low or overarm, with maces and cased bows and curved swords. They carried silver discs on poles that told us they were Khazars.

There was a pause then as we struggled into padding and mail, nocked arrows, hefted swords. Up on the lip of the steppe, two men talked . . . argued, in fact, waving arms. Wryneck chuckled. 'They don't like it one bit,' he said. 'The light horse can get down fast and hard, but we can see them off and even shelter from their arrows. Those big men aren't so happy, for they will not have as easy a time coming down as we did.'

`You have the right of it, old one,' agreed Einar. 'No speed, no shock—and charging into all this guddle underfoot.' He waved one hand at the carts and gear and earth spill and I moved closer to it.

So it proved. The big men left their big horses and came down at us on foot, slithering unsteadily in their great, ankle-lapping armour of little plates like metal leaves, with round hide-covered shields and sabres and maces. Some snapped off their great lances to use as spears on foot.

No shieldwall. This time it was hack and slash and survive.

Illugi, his godi staff discarded in favour of a shield and axe, took a rushing charge at the stand and locked himself in a fierce grapple with the first of these armoured oxen to hit us. Einar and Ketil Crow moved fluidly as a killing pair; metal clanged on metal, curses and blood sprayed.

One came at me, eyes dark and fierce under his helmet rim, his teeth startling white in the bush of a black beard. He stabbed at my thigh and I blocked it, knocking the weapon sideways with my shield. He reversed the stroke with incredible speed, lunging at my head and I had to throw myself back as the point flicked like a snake tongue almost in my eye.

He darted in again. I half dropped, slashed, felt my sword bite and recoil from that armour. His point flicked out again; I blocked and hacked again to no purpose other than chipping metal leaves off him.

Something whirled next to me; the man shrieked and dropped. Wryneck popped up like some mad puppet, rammed his sword straight through the open front of the screaming man's helmet and yelled, 'Too many to go dancing with them, young Orm. Cut the feet from the fucks.'

I remembered, then, Gunnar Raudi's lessons back in Bjornshafen: any way you can. Teeth, fists, elbows—aim for the feet and ankles. My father, teaching me how to survive . . .

There were too many. I had three on me, one with a spear, two flanking him with shields as guards. My breath was ragged; my whole arm throbbed from blows on the shield. The spearman waded in chopping in a cross-pattern, which was lucky for me. It let me know these men had no idea how to fight on foot.

I slapped the iron blade point away with a sweep of the sword, stepped, spun up inside it, rammed the shield against his armoured carapace and slammed the fat pommel of Bjarni's old sword into his face.

I knew where they all were, as if I could see it. I spun out of that, weightless it seemed to me, went into a crouch and scythed round, taking a second one just above the ankles, feeling the blade bite, hearing him howl.

The spearman was on his back now, so I leaped up, landed both feet and drove the air from him as I hurled myself at the third man, who was snarling and swinging his sabre furiously.

The blow hooked up under my shield and slammed into my ribs so hard I felt them bend. Then I hit him hard, felt the searing agony of pain in my shield-arm as we collided, falling together like two steel trees.

I rolled right, over the sword-arm, came up in a half-crouch, shield up. My left arm was pure fire now, but I hacked viciously with the sword as he struggled like a trapped beetle in his heavy armour. It swept up under the nasal of his helmet, took his nose off in a flick of blood, ripped the helmet half off his head and left him yowling and scrabbling away from me.

I sliced again, seeing the spearman wallowing back to his feet, felt the blade shear down into muscle and bone, through Noseless's neck.

The spearman was up, dragging out his sabre and I had no shield-arm, just a mass of fiery pain with a dead weight dragging it. I lunged forward as Black Beard's sabre cleared the sheath, hacked forward, backstroked and he squealed, the sabre flying away, hand still attached.

I was on one knee, sucking air. One was dead, one was rolling around with blood seeping from his boot, one was howling with the stump of a right hand.

And Einar was coming at me, dust spurting under his boots.

He had lost his shield and helmet and his hair was flying like a black net. He had also lost his sword and gained one of their cavalry sabres, the great lazy S-curve of it pointing at me as he roared forward.

I couldn't get my left arm to move. He came hurtling at me and all I could think to do was snarl back at him and slash.

The blow took him hard in the side. I saw rings explode, the straw of his padded jerkin puffed out, then blood sprayed and he shrieked, the sabre curving over my shoulder.

Taking the cavalryman coming up behind me straight in the face.

He hit, we fell together in a grunting heap of dust and blood, spilled apart, lay there. My shield straps broke—mercifully—and I rolled free of it and got up, left arm dangling.

Einar struggled up, grinned at me with bloody teeth, collected his sabre from the face of the man who had been about to kill me and hirpled off, half-bent.

I stared as the dust swirled. Men groaned, yelled. Valknut moved wearily over, finished off the one whose leg I had all but severed—the other one was gone—then walked a few paces forward and raised both arms. Àny more? Have you any more, you pox-eaten holes?'

I hoped they hadn't, but there were some ragged cheers. With my breath thundering in my ears I looked at the cavalryman with the punched-in face. Had Einar saved me? Had he tried to kill me there and was his luck so bad he had actually stopped me from being killed?

I didn't know; I couldn't be sure. But I had hurt him. Ketil Crow was with him, helping him off with his mail. Others, Illugi among them, were moving among the bodies, looking for dead and wounded.

Wryneck lay up against a wagon wheel, pinned to the ground like a hunted boar, thick blood welling round the point where the lance had sliced into the rings and mail and through him to the steppe.

I couldn't speak as I knelt by him. He felt it, opened his eyes with difficulty and grinned, spilling blood all over his white beard. 'She said I'd never get old and rich,' he said and died.

Àre you hurt bad?' I heard and turned to see Valknut looking at me. I stood up, weaving, and he steadied me, looking me over.

`This needs sewing,' he said with a chuckle, flicking the dangling rings round rents in the mail. My ribs, I knew, were bruised, but not cut. The pain in my hand was beginning to subside, too, and I realised I had got off lightly.

So did Valknut, who slapped me on one shoulder and looked at the dead men nearby. 'Not bad,' he said.

'Three in one—but that fourth would have had you if it hadn't been for Einar.'

And he strode off, sword round both shoulders, as if coming off a practice field. Over by the fire, Einar was naked to the waist, grim-faced and white as milk, while Illugi picked rings out of his flesh and heated up a knife.