Hereward 03 - End of Days (3 page)

Away in the fog, a horse snorted.

Kraki glanced through the waving reeds to where Guthrinc waited. As big as an oak, the Englishman had to all but fold himself in two to hide. Guthrinc cocked his head, listened for a moment, and then nodded. It was nearly time.

Before Kraki could order his men to make ready, the sounds of a scuffle tore through the quiet. Barely able to contain his fury, Kraki bounded over to where two of his men rolled around in the reeds. He yanked the warriors apart, snarling under his breath, ‘Give away our hiding place and I will cut off your cocks and feed them to you.’

Mad Hengist sprawled on his back, clearly the victim of the struggle. Bruises dappled his ratty face and blood trickled from his nose. The other man, Elstan, glowered.

‘What is amiss?’ Kraki growled.

‘I will not call him shield-brother,’ Elstan muttered. ‘He murdered Oswyn the potter. He cannot be trusted.’

The Viking clanged the haft of his axe against the side of the warrior’s helm. ‘Have your brains leaked out of your ears?’

‘His knife was found upon the body,’ the warrior snapped. Kraki snorted.

‘Ask at the tavern. Ask the monks—’

The Viking rapped his axe round Elstan’s head once more. ‘Enough,’ he spat. ‘Get back to your place or you will feel the bite of this blade.’

Sullen, Elstan crawled off. Kraki eyed Hengist, who ran his fingers through his straggly blond hair, muttering to himself. Since he had seen his kin slaughtered by the Normans, Hengist had veered between madness and clarity, but he had always
been loyal. ‘Ready yourself,’ the Viking murmured, shaking his axe for emphasis. He crawled back to the front and raised his arm. He could feel all eyes settle upon him.

After a while, grey shapes appeared in the mist. They gradually took on form and weight until three men on horseback and five on foot emerged into the thin light. They were cloaked and hooded against the damp and the chill, but Kraki did not need to see their faces. Those on foot were guards, fodder, in case bandits attacked. Two of the riders were knights, dangerous with their double-edged swords and battle-honed skills. But it was the third man who interested Kraki the most.

He dropped his arm.

The English burst from the reeds with a throaty battle-cry. The horses reared, whinnying, as the rebels circled their prey. Their spears whisked up, their shields raised to cover their lower faces. One of the knights tumbled back on to the soft earth. The other two riders fought to control their mounts.

‘Hold, if you value your lives,’ Kraki barked.

He strode to the front of the war-band, swinging his axe by his side. The Normans glanced around, saw they were outnumbered.

Kraki levelled his axe at the third rider and said, ‘Reveal yourself.’

The man tipped his head back in disdain and slid his cowl from his head. He showed a cold face to his captor. Unafraid, as Kraki had anticipated. He looked like a raptor, with a long, hooked nose and piercing grey eyes. His thick brown hair was shaved at the back in the Norman style.

‘Abbot Turold,’ Kraki noted, ‘caught like a rat by a pack of mill dogs.’ He looked the churchman up and down. Turold was not like any of the bent-backed, weak-armed English monks. No, he was one of the feared Norman warrior-priests, broad-shouldered and strong, as used to wielding a sword or an axe as a Bible. Kraki had heard how the English in Burgh had grown to fear this man since the king himself had sent him to
take charge of the abbey. He had once raised an enemy off the ground with one hand at the throat, so tales said. And he had single-handedly slain three robbers who had attacked him while he was riding in the forest to the west of his new home. Kraki was not impressed. He could do those things himself without raising a sweat. But they were feats for a churchman, with that he had to agree.

Turold glowered. ‘Dogs, you are, that you would attack a holy man.’

‘Your hands are not clean,’ Kraki grunted. ‘Do not pretend you are close to God. Down in the mud, where you belong.’

The English rebels jabbed their spears at the abbot until he climbed off his mount. He still held his head high. Kraki nodded and Guthrinc wrenched open a chest strapped across the rear of Turold’s horse. Gold plate glimmered. Guthrinc delved into the casket, tossing out jewel-encrusted chalices and silver boxes as if they were scraps for pigs. ‘Here,’ the big man said with a wry smile. ‘Let me unburden you. You will travel much faster to Burgh without this weighing you down.’

Hengist and another man collected the treasure and stuffed the items into sacks. ‘Some merchants will be regretting the day they hid their fortunes in an English church for safekeeping,’ Hengist noted as he weighed his sack. ‘Little did they know the king would consider it all fair game for his own coffers.’

‘William the Bastard will plunder anything in England that catches his eye,’ Kraki said, ‘and he has more than enough lackeys to make it so.’ He eyed Turold. The abbot held his gaze. The Viking grinned and said to his men, ‘Get to work.’

As the English looted the treasure, Kraki prowled around the Normans. He was uneasy. Sly words were not his strength. He only truly felt comfortable when he was swinging an axe. But he had to play the game, for it was the sole reason they were there, risking their necks to rob one of the most feared Normans in the east, a man who had the king’s ear.

Remembering the words he had discussed with the others at their council in Ely two nights gone, he said, ‘Hereward sends
his greetings. He yearns for the day when he will meet you in the flesh. At the end of a sword.’

Kraki cursed silently as he saw all his men glance up at the abbot’s face, though they had been warned to pretend they were engrossed in their tasks. But Turold seemed not to notice.

‘If your leader was as brave as his words, he would face me this day,’ the Norman abbot said with contempt. ‘Instead, he hides away with the women and children at your camp.’

Turning away, Kraki kicked amongst the treasure so that the other man would not see any emotion play on his face. He had discovered what he needed to know: the invaders had not killed Hereward. Nor did they hold him prisoner. Turold would not have been able to contain his mockery if that were the case. He recalled mad Hengist’s words at the council: ‘Hereward
is
the English rebellion in the eyes of the Norman bastards. The king’s men would have overrun Ely by now if they knew our leader was gone.’ Now there was no doubt.

Kraki knelt to pretend to examine a goblet. He felt no jubilation at this news. If Hereward had not been taken by their enemies these six weeks gone, where was he? Drowned in a bog? The Mercian was no coward, that was certain. He would never have fled, no matter how great the odds. Kraki tossed the goblet to Guthrinc. ‘This should buy us a few more axes-for-hire,’ he said. He nodded to Turold. ‘Your greed has made your work harder still. Our army grows by the day. Soon we will be coming for you. Take that message back to the snakes you call your friends.’

‘I am no go-between,’ the abbot roared. His sword flashed out of its sheath faster than Kraki could have dreamed. The cutting edge blurred towards his neck. His axe swung up without a thought, driven by instinct honed on a hundred battlefields. A stream of sparks. The ringing of iron. An impact jarring deep into his shoulder, forcing him back a step.

With some Norman epithet that Kraki didn’t understand, Turold threw himself forward. This was madness, Kraki thought. Surely the churchman knew he would be cut down
in an instant. He had thought the abbot cleverer than that.

Kraki wrinkled his nose at the stink of strange spices as the Norman slammed into him. It was like being attacked by a bear: big and strong, with a ferocious, unrelenting attack. With skilful flourishes, the sword hacked towards the few areas of exposed flesh on his body, neck, arms, calves. Kraki grunted, keeping a cool head. The priest was trying to make sure he didn’t have time to think.

He swung his axe up in front of his face and hurled himself into the path of the dancing sword. The blade clanged against his weapon, more by luck than design. But he had his opening. Kraki rammed his helm into the abbot’s face. He heard the Norman howl as cartilage burst. Hot blood splashed across his cheek.

With a yell, Kraki swung his axe up. He was ready to cleave Turold’s head in two, the opportunity to send a message back to the king be damned. But as his weapon wavered at the apex, Turold let his sword fall to his side. Kraki glimpsed the ghost of a smile on the man’s lips. He heard the sound of pounding feet in the undergrowth. One of the monks who had accompanied Turold was racing away into the woods. The fight had been a distraction. He cursed himself.

Thrusting Turold aside, he launched himself in pursuit of the darting figure. Guthrinc and Hengist crashed into the undergrowth alongside him. The monk was small and wiry, and he had a good head start. Kraki could see they would not catch him easily. And yet the churchman skidded to a halt. From a pouch at his waist, he pulled a hunting horn and raised it to his lips.

‘Bring him down,’ Kraki bellowed.

Guthrinc notched a shaft to his hunting bow. In one fluid movement, he took aim and loosed his arrow.

Too late; the lowing of the horn rolled through the still woods a moment before the shaft thudded into the man’s back.

Away in the trees, another horn answered.

C
HAPTER
T
HREE

WHEN THE HUNTING
horn blared again, nearer this time, Kraki, Guthrinc and Hengist jerked alert as if they had been burned. Wood cracked. Running feet thrummed on the leaf-mould.

Kraki cursed.

‘We stand and fight?’ Hengist peered into the mist with his unsettling pale eyes.

Turning, the Viking shook his head. ‘Too many of them by the sounds of it,’ he whispered. ‘Back to Ely.’

‘The treasure?’ Guthrinc made a hurt face; he already knew the answer.

‘Leave it. It will only weigh us down. We take with us something greater than gold – the knowledge that the Norman bastards have not spilled Hereward’s blood.’

The horn moaned once more, closer still, and it was echoed by two more. The call and response rang across the fog-shrouded woods. Kraki frowned. This was no mere hunting band.

‘Go, now,’ he urged. ‘Kill the knights, leave the monks. But if Turold stands in your way, gut him.’

Guthrinc darted away through ochre waves of bracken, light on his feet for such a big man. Kraki followed. Barely a spear’s
length had passed under his feet when he heard a cry. He whirled and saw Hengist crash down into the fern, his features contorted.

Kraki dashed back to the fallen man, fearing his spear-brother had been winged by a crossbow bolt. But as he knelt, he saw the wiry warrior only clutched at his ankle.

‘Leave me,’ Hengist whispered with a grimace. ‘I will lie among the ferns and hope the Normans will not see me.’

Kraki grunted. ‘I have heard better plans from the mouths of children.’ He peered into the white cloud. The sound of running feet echoed all around now. ‘Over my shoulder you will go. And no whining or I will dump you in a bog.’ Hengist started to protest, but Kraki only cuffed him round the ear to silence him.

He hooked one hand in the warrior’s brown tunic, the other under his thigh, and heaved him up. Hengist weighed little more than a young deer, and for that Kraki was thankful. He lumbered away from the sound of the nearing army.

Ahead, a cry echoed in the Norman tongue. Kraki recognized Turold’s voice. Guthrinc must have led the English away already. That was good. Kraki veered away from where they had caught the band of churchmen. If he could reach the flanks of the approaching Normans, he could hide in the fog as he circled behind them.

Yet even that thin plan faded too fast. Grey shapes emerged from the white cloud, two of them, he saw, searching all around. Their lips curled back in glee when they saw their prey. Shrugging Hengist off his shoulder Kraki whirled up his axe. A head flew through the air before the English warrior sprawled in the bracken. As the other soldier cupped his hand to his mouth and yelled to his comrades, Kraki hacked into his neck.

Wrenching his weapon free, he scooped Hengist up and struggled on, but he could hear the calls of their enemies drawing closer.

‘You are drunk or mad or both,’ Hengist gasped. ‘Aelfgar the One-Legged moves faster than us. Leave me now.’

‘If the gods want us both, they will take us. What we do matters not. Now keep your pox-ridden mouth closed.’

Kraki heard heavy footsteps pounding behind them. Hoping their pursuer might lose them in the fog, he ran on through the white world, the bracken swaying against his knees. But when the sound of running feet drew closer, he cursed. His choice was stark: fight or die with a sword in his back.

‘Hide,’ he whispered to the man across his shoulders. ‘Let our enemy think there is only one of us.’ Once again he shrugged Hengist off his shoulders as if he were tossing down a sack of grain. When he saw his spear-brother crawl away into the willows, he nodded, relieved. He felt a calm descend on him, and turned to face his fate, good or ill. His axe felt good in his hand. His heart was full and his blood burned in his veins.

He stared into the fog, waiting.

After a moment, what he at first took to be a bear crashed out of the white folds. No Norman, this. Furs and blood-caked mail and worn leather. A helm dented by the blows of many axes. Eyes all-black, and wild hair and beard that had been dyed red by berries. Kraki recognized Harald Redteeth, the axe-for-hire who had sworn to take Hereward’s life for some slight, Kraki wasn’t sure what. But it must have been great indeed, for the Viking had hunted the Mercian for years to achieve his blood-oath.

Kraki lowered his shoulders and brought his blue and white shield up. His nostrils flared. He could smell the reek of the other man’s sweat.

‘Hereward’s man,’ Redteeth said, giving a broken-toothed grin. ‘Where is your master?’

‘I call no man master.’

The Viking shrugged. ‘You would die in his place?’

‘If there is death here, it will not be mine.’