Fire & Steel (26 page)

TWENTY-SEVEN

Eofer sighed and pushed Hemming away with his shoulder. “For the gods sake Thrush,” he pleaded, “will you keep still?” His duguth looked sheepish but his shoulders still dipped and his spear arm stabbed out at imaginary enemies. “Sorry, lord,” he answered. “I can't help it.”

Osbeorn added his voice. “We are going to have to split up, lord. Give the remaining men a strong point to fall back on.” He held the eorle with his gaze. “We can't carry on as we have been. While we are fighting desperately to shore up one part of the wall, another will collapse.”

Eofer remained silent as he cast an anxious look across his shoulder to the West. The smoke there was thickening, more and more columns rising into the sky until they merged into a seal grey wall. He muttered under his breath and his men looked away, conscious of the weight of responsibility on the young thegn's shoulders. “They
must
give way soon.” As the noise of battle roared about them, Eofer spoke again. “How far away do you think the ravaging is taking place?”

Octa grimaced as he worried his beard; “a dozen miles or thereabouts.” He pulled a face as he made a suggestion. “Jelling?”

Eofer nodded. “It would make sense. Send men to draw off the wasps and burn the main hive while the defenders are away.” The fear which he had tried to push down deep all day returned with a vengeance. What if the ætheling had always planned to sacrifice them here? Eofer was experienced enough in the ways of war to know that his little band were expendable; it was a real possibility. He suppressed the fear with difficulty. The men looked to him for leadership. If the old hags were hovering about his life thread with their shears he would go to Woden with his head held high. “Unfortunately for us,” he joked, “we were the stick which they used to strike the nest.”

A rumble of grim laughter rolled around the group as the men there reached the same conclusion as their lord. If the ætheling and his army were still that far away there was little hope that relief would arrive before the desperate knot of defenders were overwhelmed. The Jutes could see the smoke as well as they, and they had attacked with renewed ferocity as they struck back at the only English force within reach, hoping to crush it quickly and move west to confront this new threat which had appeared in their midst.

Osbeorn spoke again. “Eofer, we can't wait. If we don't go to the fight the fight will come to us, and soon.”

A last look of regret over his shoulder and Eofer came to his decision. “No, we stick together. If I am going to Valhall, I am taking you ugly bastards with me!” he smiled. “I have an idea which may sow some confusion in their ranks and win us a little more time. At the moment it is too easy for them. A short burst of spear-play at the place of slaughter, and then back for a drink and a rest.” The eorle bared his war grin and his men took heart as he pointed deep into the Jutish host with the point of his spear. “We have yet to avenge our hearth friend. You see that bastard Heorogar?” he snarled. “Let's see if we can send him on ahead. He can tell Woden to tap another barrel so that it is ready and waiting for us when we arrive.”

The Jutes had pulled back as they exchanged places with the next wave to batter the English cliff, and the thegn inhaled deeply and took the half dozen paces which were all it now required to reach the rear of the shield wall. As Osbeorn and Hemming moved to his sides, Octa tucked in behind as the fyrdmen moved aside.

Eofer came abreast of Penda and laid a hand on his shoulder. “I shall soon be supping ale with my grandfather,” he quipped as his father's weorthman glanced his way in surprise. “Hold out as long as you can, Haystack must be here soon. See if you can give them a fight to keep the scops busy until the end of days.”

As the big man gave a grim nod, Eofer's eyes searched out Heorogar's banner from among the rest, and his heart leapt as he saw that the tides of battle had swept it closer still. The Jutish line was still in the throes of change as those at the front pulled back, comparing their wounds and turning their backs, confident that no attack would come from the ever shrinking ranks of the English. A line of dead lay between the hosts like wrack on a shore, the stink of blood and shit filling the air there; Grim's tide line awaiting the gulls and crows which circled and called hungrily above.

Eofer picked out the easiest route through the heap of corpses before him and threw his companions a fatalistic smile. “What's the best way to get into the cold sea?” he said, recalling one of Imma Gold's favourite sayings.

Osbeorn and Hemming answered together, and he could sense the men returning the smile as they did so. “Straight in, you bastards!”

As their laughter faded Eofer burst forth from the shield wall. Five paces, six and then a seventh and he crashed into the stunned Jutes at the foot of the rise. His shield slammed into the backs of men as they shrank away from the sudden onslaught, opening up a gap as he brought Gleaming over in a crashing blow on to the shoulder of a panic-stricken warrior. The Jutes parted like ripe barley and he scythed to left and right as he reaped the bloody harvest. Within a heartbeat Eofer was deep within the enemy lines and he sensed Osbeorn and Hemming at his sides, driving them away and moving onward.

He snatched a look and was heartened to see that Heorogar and his men were only a dozen paces away, but they were quicker to recover than most, and tougher too. Already two of the jarl's men were locking shields before their lord as others shoved their countrymen brutally aside, rushing to bolster the defence as the strident blare of war horns floated down from further up the meadow.

All around him the Jutes were recovering fast, and Osbeorn and Thrush Hemming kept to Eofer's side as they began to hack a path through to the jarl, swinging their bloody blades down upon heads and shoulders, driving their foemen before them like geese. Another quick look and the jarl was almost within reach. The pale sunlight glimmered from his boar-crested helm, polished silver against the dun sky. Their eyes met for an instant and Eofer saw fear there, the first he imagined that the man had ever felt, and it gave him heart for the final push. A voice cried out above the noise, loud and close by, and he was confused for a moment before he realised that it was his own. “There he is! Kill him!”

A warrior came forward hunched behind a shield, his spear raised as he prepared to stab down at this mad Englishman. Eofer knocked it aside with Gleaming as a blood reddened spear tip shot past his ear and Octa lunged forward to run the Jute through. It was an attack they had used again and again across the battlefields of the North, Eofer as ord, flanked by the swords of Imma and Hemming with Octa and Osbeorn completing the deadly knot of warriors, keeping the flanks clear with their spears. Even with Imma now supping with the Allfather in Valhall, the formation proved its worth once more. The Jute fell as the spear was ripped clear, twisting in his agony as Osbeorn chopped down with his sword to leave the arm swinging uselessly by a belt of skin and a livid tongue of red flesh.

The mass of bodies at last began to tell, blunting the attack, slowing the advance. As the momentum drained away from the charge the Engle were brought to a halt, but they stabbed and slashed and the Jutes took a pace back. It was enough. Throwing their shoulders into their shields they inched forward again, boots slipping and sliding on grass made slick with blood as they battered their way towards the jarl like men wading through the surf.

Seeing the eorle's attack falter and stall, Heorogar seized his chance. Scattering his shield men before him he came on, raising his own great blade as Eofer, trapped within the whirling mass, hunkered into his shield and braced to receive the blow. As the blade swept down Eofer threw his shoulder into his board and drove upwards, inside the killing arc. The heavy steel point of his shield boss slammed into the jarl's chest, driving the air from his lungs in an explosive rush and sending the man staggering backwards. Heorogar had seen the threat and tried to pull his sword strike but both men knew that it was too late, he was committed. Robbed of much of its force by Eofer's counter punch, the jarl's blade glanced off Eofer's helm, hissing past his shoulder and on down his side as the eorle dragged the steel lined rim of his shield up and into the Jute's chin. As Heorogar's head snapped back, Eofer heard the sickening crack as the board splintered teeth and bone. A heartbeat later his own sword had jabbed upwards, aiming to slide beneath the hem of the jarl's war shirt and take him in the belly, but the crush was too great and the blade was forced down to take the jarl in the thigh. The sword tip dipped beneath the skirt of his byrnie and across, gauging bone as the razor-sharp edge ploughed muscle and sinew and the jarl's screams filled the air. Eofer stood poised for the killing blow as Heorogar clutched at his side and went down, but an instant later his world exploded in light and pain as the jarl's hearth warriors leapt across the sprawling figure of their lord and slammed him backwards with their shields.

The power of the surge had unseated his helm and it was Eofer's turn to feel the cold hand of fear clutch at his guts as he blindly raised his shield and braced for the strike which must be a heartbeat away. Twin blows slammed into his shoulder blades and a spark of hope returned as he knew that Octa and Osbeorn had thrown their own shields into his back to bolster him. As his composure began to return he realised that he could still sense the presence of Hemming at his side, and he dragged the rim of his shield across his face and levered the helm away. Crouched behind the board, he shook away the mugginess from his brain as he braced for a follow-up strike but, to his astonishment the blow never came. Risking a glance to his side he saw that Hemming was looking away to the West, his mouth working in silent despair as a knot of horsemen broke free from the tree line and couched their spears as they came on.

Ignoring this new threat to their flank, Eofer gripped his friend's sleeve and urged him forward, desperate to take the blood price for their friend Imma before the man who had led his cold-blooded killers escaped once again. A bloody line in the grass led unerringly to the stricken form of Heorogar as his hearth men dragged him towards safety. A river the colour of lead was pulsing from the jarl's thigh to darken the ground around him, and a long line of a paler hue hinted at the bone beneath the open flesh. It was a death wound he was sure, but Eofer wanted more. He had watched the man lead a cowardly attack on a lifelong friend and he would have his vengeance. “Come on, Thrush,” he yelled. “We have him!”

Hemming responded to his lord's words in an instant, his head snapping back and they surged forward together in their death charge. Howling their war cries the pair crashed into the Jutes, shield on shield, bludgeoning them aside, cutting them down as their jarl looked on impotently from the turf. Hemming was joined by Osbeorn and Octa and, as the trio made short work of the remaining Jutes, Eofer glowered at his enemy. As their eyes locked, Heorogar moved his hand across to the hilt of his sword but Eofer aimed a savage kick, and a look of despair crossed his foe's features as the blade spun away and the jarl realised that the Englishman would deny him a place in Valhall.

Eofer looked down as his duguth backed around him, their weapons ready to stab out at any who came near. He had seen the wolf dancers above the jarl's eye but it was not enough. “Wolf brother or not,” he snarled as a look of disgust crossed his features. “I don't think that Imma wants to drink with you on his death day.” Pinning the jarl's sword arm to the ground with his boot the eorle snarled again. “You are not worthy of a place in the hall of the Allfather, go to Hel!” Heorogar's eyes went wide as Eofer's sword point found the soft flesh of his throat and the eorle pushed down. As Gleaming's wide blade slid through tendon and muscle and on into the ground beneath, Hemming spoke at his side, his voice joyful. “Thank the gods!”

As the last spasms of life left Heorogar, Eofer dragged his eyes away from the twitching figure at his feet and screwed up his face in confusion as his duguth began to laugh. A line of horses galloped across his line of sight and Eofer instinctively looked back towards the safety of the English shield wall to their rear. Caught in the open by horse warriors in their exhausted state their lives could be measured in moments, but the eorle blinked again as he saw that the men there too were cheering and laughing, their spears and swords stabbing the air. His own duguth were calling out to the riders, throwing their arms around each other and lowering their shields to their sides. Eofer looked back in bewilderment as a horseman reined in and slipped from the saddle before him.

“What's this? No hug for the man who saved your arse?”

A smile began to tug at the corners of Eofer's mouth as his befuddled mind finally recognised that it was Wulf who stood before him, and they threw their arms around each other and laughed like fools as riders thundered around the tiny group.

The brothers watched as the English horsemen rode down the Jutish stragglers before wheeling about to form a protective screen before the weary shield burh at the bridge.

“I have to get back there,” he said. “They are still fighting on the causeway, they will need help.”

Wulf laughed. “You still don't realise what is happening here do you? This is more than just a rescue column. Here,” he said, “climb on my horse and watch the fun.”

Eofer hauled himself into his brother's saddle and looked across the heads of his old shield hedge. Out beyond the place where Spearhafoc stood resolutely beneath the standard, his own burning hart hildbeacn
,
the last of the Jute attackers were streaming back towards the town as the defenders dropped to the floor in exhaustion.

Switching his gaze to the South a lone rider sat outlined against the tree line, dazzling in armour and grim helm which shone like winter ice. Sat astride a magnificent war horse, the warrior's own raven war flag writhed in the fitful breeze and Eofer recognised the horseman immediately, watching as the ætheling raised a war horn and blew again. Shining Mane had pulled the sun to its zenith, the shadows of that interminable morning had been chased away, and the eorle looked on with a rising sense of excitement as the tree line too began to shimmer with light. Within moments the spectral glimmer slowly hardened into the figures of hundreds of steel clad warriors, thegns, men of the shires, as they strode purposefully forward in battle array to form their ranks in the lee of their leader.