Hereward 03 - End of Days (26 page)

Sighard yelped with glee as the battle unfolded just as Hereward had told them. But beside him, Madulf only glowered. No smile would reach his lips until victory was assured, his brother knew. Hereward yelled out and the two men looked to him. He whirled his hand and they ran to their positions among the piles of timber assembled for the causeway construction.

Above the roar of the fire, a distant rumble echoed. Messengers had reached the Norman force sent out along the north road and they were returning to join the fray. On either side, Hereward saw the faces of his men harden. So few, they were, and their enemies so great in number, they seemed little more than straws about to be washed away by the spring floods.

He ran along the rear of the shield wall, punching the air as he urged his men to greater efforts. ‘Courage, brothers,’ he roared. ‘One Englishman is worth ten of the Norman bastards. When we stand shoulder to shoulder our spears can thwart any attack, no matter how great.’

At the far end of the causeway, a group of the king’s men had gained a foothold. Hereward glimpsed them hacking a path to one of the towers. As he tried to second-guess their tactics, Guthrinc ran up behind him and jabbed a finger. The Mercian followed the line of his arm to the summit of the tower, where the witch clawed her way from the top of a ladder on to the flat platform. ‘Is she mad?’ the tall man shouted above the din.

‘Aye, mad, and crazed with hatred for the English churchmen who drove her from her home.’

In front of him, one of his men fell back, his ankle hacked to the bone. Hereward thrust his way into the position, slotting his shield into the wall, and not a moment too soon. An axe crashed against the boss, jolting every bone in his body.
Gritting his teeth, he hacked down into the soldier’s neck and kicked the body on top of the warriors beneath.

A cheer rang out along the English line. Disturbed by the sound, the Normans craned their necks round to see what had caused the jubilation. Hereward grinned; all was going as planned. The distant thunder grew louder still, and as the wall of smoke parted, he caught sight of Morcar and his army racing towards Belsar’s Hill. The enemy was in disarray. From the edge of the camp, the music of war swelled, the clash of iron upon shields, the screams of the dying and the battle-cries of the English. All around, his men’s faces flushed with fierce determination.

Behind him, another cry rang out. He glanced back to see Sighard and Madulf had set alight the causeway timbers. Some they had stoked around the foot of the nearest towers and the flames were already licking up the sides.

But that was the least of it, he saw. The two brothers had succeeded in the plan that had come to him when he had first spied the building of the causeway. The dry peat of the ramparts was on fire, the peat that ran under most of the fens in these parts.

His men had set the world itself alight. The Normans, and their hopes of victory, would be engulfed in the flames of an English-made hell.

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BY THE GATES
, Deda jerked from his daze into a world gone mad. Black smoke swirled overhead, agleam with sparks. Cries of alarm echoed, and the din of battle hung over all. Pulling on their helms, warriors raced across the camp and out beyond the walls. The ground throbbed with the beat of hooves as five knights leaned across the necks of their horses and drove them on at a gallop from the castle ward.

Hauling himself to his feet, he tried to make sense of this madness. The last thing he recalled was a feeling of impending doom while he led Acha to the gates. Now he could see no sign of her.

Through the stream of soldiers, he caught sight of Rowena. Her head was bowed in deep reflection, or worry, and she seemed oblivious of the steeds thundering towards her.

He yelled a warning. Still she did not look up.

Within a moment she would be crushed beneath the horses’ hooves. As she stepped out on to the track, Deda hurled himself in front of the chargers. The deafening rumble enveloped him. He sensed the steeds a whisker away, could almost feel their hot breath upon him, and then he crashed against Rowena, pitching her out of the path of danger.

With a cry, she jolted from her dream and gaped at the disappearing knights. As she realized how close she had come to death, she fell into Deda’s arms in shock.

‘My thanks,’ she gasped.

Her head rested against his chest for only an instant. Then she recognized where she was and yanked herself back in embarrassment and discomfort. Running her fingers through her hair, she refused to meet his gaze.

‘You must take care,’ he began, silently cursing himself for his awkwardness.

‘I know.’ She kneaded her hands, a sign, he thought, of her self-loathing. He bowed and stepped away, not wanting to see her suffer any more.

Another horse thundered by, and when Deda looked up he saw that the rider was William de Warenne. The nobleman looked afraid for his life. At the gates, he urged his mount west, away from the camp, and the fens.

Fleeing
, the knight thought, puzzled.

A moment later, the king stormed past with a face like thunder. Odo of Bayeux, the Butcher and four more of his closest advisers swirled in his wake.

Glancing back only once to see Rowena hurrying away, Deda ran after the monarch. Outside the gates, William looked out over the scenes of battle in horror. ‘How has it come to this?’ he roared.

‘We were unprepared,’ Taillebois said. ‘The English are cunning bastards.’

The monarch shook his fist in the air. ‘We had them by the balls! This should not be!’

Deda looked at the devastation the English had wrought already and saw that the king’s men were in danger of being crushed, as William himself must surely have recognized. Should they fight, and risk being torn apart, or run?

He searched the monarch’s face. Behind the fury, he thought he glimpsed the first flicker of doubt he had ever seen William
display. The Bastard had underestimated the English, and he knew it.

‘My lord,’ the Butcher pressed. ‘What do you command?’

The king snarled. ‘I will have Hereward’s head if it cost me all the gold in England.’

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THE FENLANDS WERE
burning. Silhouetted against the wall of flames that seemed to soar up to the very heavens themselves, Hereward looked out across the destruction he had wrought. Reed-beds and willow woods, ash trees and sedge, the makeshift settlement and the causeway, even the very earth itself, all was ablaze. There was no sky, only a suffocating pall of smoke from horizon to horizon, swirling with vast constellations of golden sparks. Along the track to Belsar’s Hill the Norman army cowered, a river of iron grown slow and turgid amid the conflagration. The king’s men milled about in terror, not knowing which way to turn. The English archers rained arrows down upon them. The roaring of the inferno drowned out the screams.

On the hilltop, the camp shimmered in the heat haze. As Hereward squinted, trying to see William the Bastard’s standard flying above the castle, he shuddered. A troubling notion gripped him that he had lived through this moment many times before. In truth, he realized, he had been dreaming it all his life. Here was his destiny: a burning world and he the devil that oversaw it.

‘We have the bastards,’ Kraki yelled beside him. His face was
flushed and sweat streamed down his brow. He flashed a questioning glance.

‘We will find her and bring her home,’ Hereward replied, clapping a hand on the Viking’s shoulder. He spun round and thrust his sword into the air. With a roar, he slashed his sword towards the enemy. His warriors answered him with one voice, their thunderous cry rolling out as they threw themselves down the ramparts. Spears rammed into the churning soldiers, ripping through chests and necks and faces. The shield wall held firm. Back the Normans were driven, and further back still, until those at the rear of the enemy ranks were plunged into the fire sweeping through the causeway settlement. Some ran, pillars of flame setting alight their brothers. Most were consumed in moments in the furnace heat.

The Mercian almost felt pity for the hated enemy. They fought battles the way they made their ledgers and raised their taxes, line by ordered line, a relentless procession that crushed all before it. They were not ready for this madness of the English wild men.

Hereward dashed along the burning causeway to find a better vantage point. Once the billowing smoke had cleared, he could see that Morcar’s seasoned warriors were carving through the king’s men near the camp.

The Normans were being routed. The causeway was crumbling. Victory was near.

But not yet assured. A shriek rang out across the din of battle. Hereward craned his neck up and saw the witch poised at the top of the nearest tower. Her skirts were raised and she was showing her arse to the English warriors. When her contempt had been seen by all, she spun round and threw her arms towards the heavens. In a voice that was near a scream, she intoned the words of her spell. The Mercian did not recognize the language, but he saw the effect it had upon his men. As they fought, they twisted their heads up towards the witch as if they expected to be struck by a lightning bolt or turned to salt. Fear was sapping the passion from them, he
could see. Their attack slowed. The shield wall buckled here and there. Spears danced off mail instead of tearing flesh.

And as the English courage ebbed, flashes of determination lit the faces of the Normans as they redoubled their efforts. Swords and axes crashed against the English shields, at first holding the advance, then driving it back. Soon the greater numbers of the Normans would prevail.

Wrestling with his conscience, once more he looked up at the witch yelping her spells. It mattered not whether the Devil answered her calls as long as his men and the Normans believed it would be so. Sickened, he glanced around until he saw Guthrinc. Beckoning the tall man over, he pushed aside his guilt and pointed at the witch. ‘Take your bow and end her days,’ he yelled.

Guthrinc nodded. Nocking a shaft, he took aim and fired. The arrow fell short. The witch shrieked louder at his failure. The Normans must have believed her protected by the Devil himself, for they crashed against the shield wall like a winter sea. The tall man remained as calm as if he were hunting grouse. He selected another arrow and braced himself.

This one rammed into the wise woman’s chest. She must have died instantly, for her shrieks snapped off and she pitched over the tower’s edge into the inferno. Hereward’s stomach clenched and he turned away. Never before had he caused any woman to be killed.

‘The Devil has called her home,’ Guthrinc muttered with a shrug. ‘And all is well with the world.’

As the flames surged up the footings of the tower, Hereward watched the Norman blades slow once more. Their hope had died with the witch. Much good would come of this crime, he tried to tell himself. Forcing his thoughts aside, he roared, ‘We are English. We will not be broken. Run before us, you Norman bastards. Flee for your lives.’

Whipped up by the wind, the walls of flames rushed towards Belsar’s Hill along both sides of the fighting. The English kept their heads low, grimly fixated upon the enemy. Hereward felt
proud. He had told them all that fire was their friend. If they put their faith in God, they would have nothing to fear. But the Normans saw only a vision of hell. Stupefied by terror, many could not even lift their weapons. Spears tore them apart. Others ran, consumed by madness, and trampled their own brothers or fell into the conflagration that they were trying to escape. And still the English arrows rained down upon them.

‘This is a slaughterhouse,’ Madulf said, gaping.

‘No worse than what they planned for us,’ Hereward shouted. His throat was hoarse from calling above the deafening roaring of the blaze. ‘Let them die, as they let the north die.’

A messenger scrambled along the burning causeway, his face streaked with soot. He was barely more than a lad, who had spent most of his days carrying wood for the hearth-fires in Ely. ‘I have word from Earl Morcar,’ he cried, his eyes darting all around as he tried to shield his face from the heat. ‘The king is running!’

Word must have reached the Normans at the same time, for Hereward could see those at the rear of the ranks taking flight in all directions. Some fled into the marshes, others raced towards the camp, where Morcar’s men were waiting to pick off any they encountered.

‘Kill every Norman you find,’ Hereward bellowed to his warriors. ‘Leave no man standing.’

Consumed with blood-lust, he hurled himself into the battle. But barely had his sword cut down two Normans when Sighard grabbed his arm.

‘There is a woman screaming,’ he cried, pointing towards the last of the huts and workshops standing in front of the wall of fire. ‘They say it is Acha, trapped.’ Hereward glanced to where Kraki was carving a path through the fleeing Normans, and then threw himself towards the fire. Sighard tried to block his path. ‘You are mad. You cannot save her – no one can. The fire is moving too fast. You will be burned alive.’

‘If I do not return, tell Kraki I tried,’ he shouted, and then he thrust the other man aside and raced into the smoke.

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THE INFERNO SCORCHED
Hereward’s lungs as he dashed among the last of the huts and workshops not yet alight. His skin seared as if he had been suspended over a smith’s forge. Around him, the world shimmered in a glassy haze, a world of towering flame and walls of sparks and choking smoke, all of it pressing so tight against him he could barely draw a breath. Sighard had been right; he would not last long in that heat of a thousand suns.

Driven by the wind, the flames leapt from hut to hut faster than a man could walk. He blinked away stinging tears and yelled Acha’s name, but the roaring of the fire snatched his voice away. All around him, Norman soldiers staggered. They would rather try to pass through hell than be caught between his men and Morcar’s, and put to the spear in the slaughter.