• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1484 0

behind the shield wall. He screamed his Irish challenge, words that meant nothing to any of us, but curdled the blood all the same, and the shield wall, seeing horsemen in front and behind, broke apart. Their captives were cowering in the yard, all women and children, and I shouted at them to head north towards the river. ‘Go, go!’ Broga had charged two men. One swung his sword at Broga’s mouth, but he was trained well and reared up, hooves flailing, and the man ducked away. I clung to him, waited till he came down and brought Serpent-Breath hard down onto the second man’s head, splitting helmet and skull. I heard a scream and saw that Broga had bitten off the first man’s face. I spurred on. Dogs were howling, children screaming, and Serpent-Breath was feeding. A naked woman stumbled from the hall, her hair unbound, her face smeared with blood. ‘Go that way!’ I shouted at her, pointing my red blade north.

‘My children!’

‘Find them! Go!’

A Dane came from the hall, sword in hand, stared in horror and turned back, but Rypere had seen him and galloped by him, seized him by his long hair and dragged him away. Two spears gouged his belly and a stallion trampled him and he writhed, bloody and moaning and we left him there.

‘Oswi!’ I shouted for my servant. ‘Horn!’

More Danes were showing in the south now, many more Danes, and it was time to go. We had hurt the enemy badly, but this was no place to fight against an outnumbering horde. I just wanted the Danes to stay here, trapped by the river, so that Edward could bring the army of Wessex against them and drive them like cattle onto my swords. Oswi kept sounding the horn, the noise frantic.

‘Back!’ I shouted. ‘All of you! Back!’

We went back slowly enough. Our wild charge had killed and wounded at least a hundred men so that the small fields were dotted with bodies. The injured lay in ditches or by hedges, and we left them there. Steapa was grinning, a fearsome sight, his big teeth bared and his sword reddened. ‘Your men are the rearguard,’ I told him, and he nodded. I looked for Æthelflaed and was relieved to see her unharmed. ‘Look after the fugitives,’ I told her. The escaped captives had to be shepherded back. I saw the naked woman dragging two small children by their hands.

I formed my men at the edge of the trees where our charge had started. We waited there, shields on our arms now, swords bright with enemy blood, and we dared the Danes to come at us, but they were disorganised and they were hurt, and they would not risk a charge until they had more men, and once I saw that the fugitives were safely gone north I shouted at my men to follow them.

We had lost five men; two Mercians and three West Saxons, but we had savaged the enemy. Finan had two captives, and I sent them ahead with the fugitives. The bridge was crowded with horses and fleeing people, and I stayed with Steapa, guarding the southern end until I was certain the last of our people was across the river.

We barricaded the northern end of the bridge, heaping logs across the road and inviting the Danes to come and be killed between the Roman parapets. But none did. They watched us work, they gathered in ever greater numbers on the West Saxon side of the river, but they did not come for their revenge. I left Steapa and his men to guard the barricade, certain that no Dane would cross while he was there.

Then I went to question the captives.

The two Danes were being guarded by six of Æthelflaed’s Mercians, who protected them from the fury of a crowd that had gathered in the space before Saint Werburgh’s convent. The crowd fell silent when I arrived, cowed perhaps by Broga whose mouth was still stained with blood. I slid from the saddle and let Oswi take the reins. I still carried Serpent-Breath in my hand, her blade unwashed.

There was a tavern hung with the sign of a goose next to the convent and I had the two men taken into its yard. Their names were Leif and Hakon, both were young, both were frightened and both were trying not to show it. I had the yard gates closed and barred. The two stood in the