The Pale Horseman (44 page)

'Keep your shield up,' I told him.

'I know, I know.'

'You protect Pyrlig's head, understand?'

'I know!' He was irritated that I had given him the advice. 'I know,' he repeated
petulantly.

'Forward! Forward!' Osric called. Like Alfred he was on horseback and he went up and down
behind his line, sword drawn, and I thought he would jab the blade at his men to goad them
onwards. They went a few paces and the Danish shields came up again and the limewood made a
knocking sound as the skjaldborg was made and once again our line faltered. Svein and his
horsemen were now at the very far flank, but Osric had placed a group of picked warriors
there, ready to guard the open end of his line.

'For God! For Wiltunscir!' Osric shouted, 'forward!'

Alfred's men were on the left of Osric's fyrd where we were bent slightly back, ready to
receive the expected flank attack from the fort. We went forward readily enough, but then,
we were mostly warriors and knew we could not advance in front of Osric's more nervous
troops. I almost stepped into a scrap of the ground where, astonishingly, three leverets
lay low and quivering. I stared at them and hoped that the men behind me would avoid the
little beasts and knew they would not. I do not know why hares leave their young in the open,
but they do and there they lay, small, sleek leverets in a hollow of the downs, doubtless the
first things to die in that day of wind and rain.

'Shout at them!' Osric called. 'Tell them they're bastards! Call them sons of whores! Say
they're shit from the north! Shout at them!' He knew that was one way to get men moving. The
Danes were screaming at us, calling us women, saying we had no courage, and no one in our
ranks was shouting back, but Osric's men started now and the wet sky was filled with the noise
of weapons banging on shields and men calling insults.

I had hung Serpent-Breath on my back. In the crush of battle a sword is easier to draw
over the shoulder than from the hip, and the first stroke can then be a vicious downward hack.
I carried WaspSting in my right hand. Wasp-Sting was a sax, a short-sword, a stout blade for
stabbing, and in the press of men heaving against an enemy shield wall a short-sword can do
more damage than a long blade. My shield, iron-rimmed, was held on my left forearm by two
leather loops. The shield had a metal boss the size of a man's head, a weapon in itself.
Steapa, to my right, had a long sword, not as long as the one with which he had fought me at.
Cippanhamm, but still a hefty blade, though in his big hand it looked almost puny. Pyrlig
carried a boar spear, short and stout and with a wide blade. He was saying the same phrase over
and over. 'Ein tad, yr hwn wytyn y nefoedd, sancteiddier dy enw.' I learned later it was the
prayer Jesus had taught his disciples. Steapa was muttering that the Danes were bastards.
'Bastards,' he said, then, 'God help me, bastards.' He kept saying it. Over and over.

'Bastards, God help me, bastards.' My mouth was suddenly too dry to speak, and my stomach
felt sour and my bowels loose.

'Forward! Forward!' Osric called and we shuffled on, shields touching, and we could see
the enemies' faces now. We could see men's unkempt beards and yellow-toothed snarls, see
their scarred cheeks, pocked skin and broken noses. My face-plate meant I could only see
directly ahead. Sometimes it is better to fight without a face-plate, to see the attacks
coming from the side, but in the clash of shield walls a face-plate is useful. The helmet was
lined with leather. I was sweating. Arrows flicked from the Danish line. They did not have
many bowmen and the arrows were scattered, but we raised shields to protect our faces. None
came near me, but we were bent back from the line to watch the fort's green walls that were
rimmed with men, thick with sword-Danes, and I could see Ragnar's eaglewing banner there and
I wondered what would happen if I found myself face to face with him. I could see the axes
and spears and swords, the blades that sought our souls. Rain drummed on helmets and
shields.

The line paused again. Osric's shield wall and Svein's skjaldborg were only twenty paces
apart now and men could see their immediate foes, could see the face of the man they must kill
or the man who would kill them. Both sides were screaming, spitting anger and insults, and the
spear-throwers had their first missiles hefted.

'Keep closer' someone shouted.

'Shields touching!'

'God is with us!' Beocca called.

'Forward!' Another two paces, more of a shuffle forward than stepping.

'Bastards,' Steapa said, 'God help me, bastards.'

'Now!' Osric screamed. 'Now! Forward and kill them! Forward and kill them! Go! Go! Go!' And
the men of Wiltunscir went. They let out a great war shout, as much to hearten themselves as
to frighten the enemy, and suddenly, after so long, the shield wall went forward fast, men
screaming, and the spears came over the Danish line and our own spears were hurled back and
then came the clash, the real battle thunder as shield wall met skjaldborg. The shock of the
collision shook our whole line so that even my troops, who were not yet engaged, staggered. I
heard the first screams, the clangour of blades, the thump of metal driving into shieldwood,
the grunting of men, and then I saw the Danes coming over the green ramparts, a flood of Danes
charging us, intent on hacking into the flank of our attack, but that was why Alfred had
put us on the left of Osric's force.

'Shields!' Leofric roared.

I hoisted my shield, touched Steapa's and Pyrlig's shields, then crouched to receive the
charge. Head down, body covered by wood, legs braced, Wasp-Sting ready. Behind us and to our
right Osric's men fought. I could smell blood and shit. Those are the smells of battle, then I
forgot Osric's fight for the rain was in my face, and the Danes were coming at a run, no
shield wall formed, just a frenzied charge intent on winning the battle in one furious
assault. There were hundreds of them, and then our spear-throwers let their missiles go.

'Now!' I shouted, and we stepped one pace forward to meet the charge and my left arm was
crushed into my chest as a Dane hit me, shield against shield, and be slammed an axe down and I
rammed Wasp-Sting forward, past his shield, into his flank and his axe buried itself in
Eadric's shield that was above my head. I twisted Wasp-Sting's blade, pulled her free and
stabbed again. I could smell ale on the Dane's sour breath. His face was a grimace. He yanked
his axe free. I stabbed again and twisted the sax's tip into mail or bone, I could not tell
which. 'Your mother was a piece of pig-shit,' I told the Dane, and he screamed in rage and
tried to bring the axe down onto my helmet, but I ducked and shoved forward, and Eadric
protected me with his shield, and Wasp-Sting was red now, warm and sticky with blood, and I
ripped her upwards.

Steapa was screaming incoherently, his sword slashing left and right, and the Danes
avoided him. My enemy stumbled, went down onto his knees, and I hit him with the shield boss,
breaking his nose and teeth, then shoved Wasp-Sting into his bloody mouth. Another man
immediately took his place, but Pyrlig buried his boar spear in the newcomer's belly.

'Shields!' I shouted, and Steapa and Pyrlig instinctively lined their shields with mine.
I had no idea what happened elsewhere on the hilltop. I only knew what happened within
Wasp-Sting's reach.

'Back one! Back one!' Pyrlig called, and we stepped back one pace so that the next Danes,
taking the place of the men we had wounded or killed, would trip over the fallen bodies of
their comrades, and then we stepped forward as they came so that we met them when they were off
balance. That was how to do it, the way of the warrior, and we in Alfred's immediate force
were his best soldiers. The Danes had charged us wildly, not bothering to lock shields in the
belief that their fury alone would overwhelm us. They had been drawn, too, by the sight of
Alfred's banners and the knowledge that should those twin flags topple then the battle was
as good as won, but their assault hit our shield wall like an ocean wave striking a cliff, and
it shattered there. It left men on the turf and blood on the grass, and now the Danes at last
made a proper shield wall and came at us more steadily.

I heard the enemy shields touching, saw the Danes' wild eyes over the round rims, saw their
grimaces as they gathered their strength. Then they shouted and came to kill us.

'Now!' I shouted and we thrust forward to meet them.

The shield walls crashed together. Eadric was at my back, pressing me forward, and the
art of fighting now was to keep a space between my body and my shield with a strong left arm,
and then to stab under the shield with Wasp-Sting. Eadric could fight over my shoulder with
his sword. I had space to my right for Steapa was left-handed which meant his shield was on
his right arm, and he kept moving it away from me to give his long sword room to strike.

That gap, no wider than a man's foot is long, was an invitation to the Danes, but they were
scared of Steapa and none tried to burst through the small space. His height alone made him
distinctive, and his skull-tight face made him fearsome. He was bellowing like a calf
being gelded, half shriek and half belligerence, inviting the Danes to come and be killed.
They refused. They had learned the danger of Pyrlig, Steapa and I, and they were cautious.
Elsewhere along Alfred's shield wall there were men dying and screaming, swords and axes
clanging like bells, but in front of me the Danes hung back and merely jabbed with spears to
keep us at bay. I shouted that they were cowards, but that did not goad them onto Wasp-Sting,
and I glanced left and right and saw that all along Alfred's line we were holding them. Our
shield wall was strong. All that practice in Æthelingaeg was proving itself, and for the
Danes the fight grew ever more difficult for they were attacking us, and to reach us they
had to step over the bodies of their own dead and wounded. A man does not see where he treads
in battle for he is watching the enemy, and some Danes stumbled, and others slipped on the
rain-slicked grass and when they were off balance we struck hard, spears and swords like
snake-tongues, making more bodies to trip the enemy.

We of Alfred's household troops were good. We were steady. We were beating the Danes, but
behind us, in Osric's larger force, Wessex was dying.

Because Osric's shield wall unravelled.

Wulfhere's men did it. They did not break Osric's shield wall by fighting it, but by trying
to join it. Few of them wanted to fight for the Danes and, now that the battle was joined, they
shouted at their countrymen that they were no enemy and wanted to change sides, and the
shield wall opened to let them through, and Svein's men went for the gaps like wildcats. One
after the other those gaps widened as Sword-Danes burst through. They cut Wulfhere's men down
from behind, they prised open Osric's ranks and spread death like a plague. Svein's Vikings
were warriors among farmers, hawks among pigeons, and all of Alfred's right wing shattered.
Arnulf saved the men of Suth Seaxa by leading them to the rear of our ranks, and they were safe
enough there, but Osric's fyrd was broken, harried and driven away east and south.

The rain had stopped and a cold damp wind scoured the edge of the downs now. Alfred's men,
reinforced by Arnulf's four hundred and a dozen or so of Osric's fugitives, stood alone as
the Wiltunscir fyrd retreated. They were being driven away from us, and Svein and his
horsemen were panicking them. The fyrd had been eight hundred strong, ranked firm, and now
they were shattered into small groups that huddled together for protection and tried to
fend off the galloping horsemen who thrust with their long spears. Bodies lay all across the
turf. Some of Osric's men were wounded and crawled south as if there might be safety where the
women and horses were gathered around a mounded grave of the old folk, but the horsemen
turned and speared them, and the un-mounted Danes were making new shield walls to attack the
fugitives. We could do nothing to help, for we were still fighting Guthrum's men who had come
from the fort and, though we were winning that fight, we could not turn our backs on the enemy.
So we thrust and hacked and pushed, and slowly they went backwards, and then they realised
that they were dying man by man, and I heard the Danish shouts to go back to the fort, and we
let them go. They retreated from us, walking backwards, and when they saw we would not
follow, they turned and ran to the green walls. They left a tide line of corpses, sixty or
seventy Danes on the turf, and we had lost no more than twenty men. I took a silver chain off
one corpse, two arm rings from another and a fine bonehandled knife with a knob of amber in
its hilt from a third.

'Back!' Alfred called.

It was not till we retreated to where we had begun the fight that I realised the
disaster on our right. We had been the centre of Alfred's army, but now we were its right
wing, and what had been our strong right flank was splintered chaos. Many of Osric's men had
retreated to where the women and horses waited, and they made a shield wall there which
served to protect them, but most of the fyrd had fled farther east and was being carved into
smaller and smaller groups.

Svein at last hauled his men back from the pursuit, but by then nearly all our right wing
was gone. Many of those men lived, but they had been driven from the field and would be
reluctant to come back and take more punishment. Osric himself had survived, and he
brought the two hundred men who had retreated to the women and horses back to Alfred, but
that was all he had left. Svein formed his men again, facing us, and I could see him
haranguing them.

'They're coming for us,' I said.

'God will protect us,' Pyrlig said. He had blood on his face. A sword or axe had pierced his
helmet and cut open his scalp so that blood was crusted thick on his left cheek.