Hereward 05 - The Immortals (2 page)

The wind began to moan. Whorls of dust licked up along the ridge. The Turks gripped their swords tighter, eyes flickering from the rotting corpses to their prey. Summoning their courage, Ragener thought. All around, shadows began to pool. Only a sliver of moon remained. The warriors became silhouettes against the lowering sky.

Raising his blade, the first Seljuk took a step down the slope.

Justin’s high-pitched laughter spiralled up, drowning out Ragener’s whimpers. The sea wolf blinked away tears. There was no justice in this world. He deserved so much more than this ignoble death.

The growing gloom snatched away all but the barest details. The Turk edged down one more step, his movements becoming more confident.

And then Ragener heard a whistling beneath the wind that ended in a sticky thud. A shape flew through the air towards him. A moment later he found himself staring into dead eyes. The Seljuk’s head lay in front of him, leaking blood into the dust.

A maelstrom of sound and fury swept along the ridge. Cries of alarm rang out. The warriors began to stumble back and forth in confusion, yelling as they hacked at the air with their swords. Ragener squinted, trying to pierce the dark, but he was as lost as those raving Turks.

Another whistle. Another wet thud. Ragener was reminded of his father preparing the lamb for the pot as the cold weather drew in. Raindrops swept on the wind, spattering the sea wolf’s face. But then he smelled iron and knew it was not water.

The dying screams of the Turks became one voice, punctuated in the lulls by the boy’s shrieking laughter. A body tumbled down the slope, flapping like a landed fish. Another head rolled among the crosses.

Terrified, the sea wolf jerked his head this way and that. The dark swallowed whatever prowled around him.
What devil is out there in the night
? he thought, his prayers rising in a wave. For surely this slaughter could be the work of no man. Too fast, too brutal, leaving not even a whisper of feet on dust to mark its passing.

When the last scream was cut short, and the final warrior crashed on to the stained ground, only the moan of the wind rolled out across the waste. Even Justin had grown silent.

Ragener’s breath burned in his chest. Then, after what seemed an unbearable moment, a terrible silhouette loomed up on the ridge. The sea wolf whimpered, and waited for the end.

THE PLUME OF
dust hovered on the eastern horizon. Beneath a golden sky, the band of warriors lowered their spears and watched the cloud billow beyond the waist-high grass swaying in the hot breeze. Voices stilled. Faces darkened. Since dawn the high plain had been empty. But now, as the day turned towards dusk, every man there felt a grim sense of foreboding.

‘What do you see, Guthrinc?’ As Hereward of the English shielded his eyes his arm flexed, rippling the circular tattoos of a warrior. Though he had been born in the old English Kingdom of Mercia, he was a Dane by blood and his blond hair near glowed under that merciless sun. He had led the war-band for long years now, through the bitter, failed rebellion against the Norman cur William the Bastard who had stolen the English throne, and through the months of exile that had led them here, to these strange lands in the east.

Times had grown hard, and their enemies seemed to multiply by the day. His helm was dented, his mail-shirt torn here and there, each scratch telling a story of some hard-fought battle. His shield was splintered and needed a new lick of paint, but the golden hilt of his sword, Brainbiter, still gleamed as brightly as ever.

Guthrinc had the best eyes of all the spear-brothers. An English oak who towered over the others, he had known Hereward longer than any man there. ‘One rider,’ he said. ‘And riding hard.’

‘Watch him. The Turks rarely venture this close to the city walls. But one day they will come in force, and then our new masters will regret paying so little heed to the enemy on their doorstep.’ Hereward turned back to the rest of his men, irritated by the bitterness that had laced his words.

An angry voice rang out at the rear of the war-band. Hereward scanned his men: Hengist the Mad, Sighard, Hiroc the Three-fingered, Derman, Herrig the Rat and the rest; fifteen in all. Tempers had grown thin since they had been forced to take the coin of the Roman army to put food in their bellies. These were some of the bravest warriors he had known. In England, they had taken on the vastly superior Norman forces at the Isle of Ely. Only betrayal by the monks had brought about their defeat. But in Constantinople the Romans treated them like children who could not be trusted to raise a weapon, or, worse, like slaves. For day after day, week after week, they had roamed the deserted lands, watching for an attack that never came.

Pushing his way through the spear-brothers, the Mercian was not surprised to find Kraki at the heart of this disturbance. Wild of beard and hair, the Viking was a seasoned warrior, a former huscarl in the hall of Earl Tostig of Eoferwic, with a dark mood that rumbled away like a summer storm. Now the scar tissue on his face was crumpled in a scowl as he jabbed a finger towards Turold, a young warrior from Wessex who fancied himself a scop. His songs soothed the other spear-brothers at the end of a hard day, and every man listened, entranced, when he spun his riddles beside the fire.

‘Save your brawling for the tavern,’ Hereward commanded the Viking. ‘These days you are snapping like a wounded bear.’

Kraki glared. ‘This coward wants to throw down his spear and become a farmer.’

Turold held up his hands. ‘’Tis true. I have carried a spear with you ever since I wandered into the camp at Ely with nothing but the mud under my nails. I fought then because the Normans wanted to take everything we held dear. But there is not one here who would truly call me a fighting man.’

Hereward could not argue. Turold was always quick to smile and for the most part as gentle as a churchman.

‘Some Roman girl has stolen his wits,’ Kraki grumbled.

‘Leave him be,’ one of the others called. ‘He has done no harm to you.’

Kraki rounded on them, his fists bunching. ‘We are brothers! We stand together, we die together!’

Another warrior made a farting noise that only drove the Viking to even greater rage. Hereward stepped forward, placing one hand on Kraki’s chest to hold him back. Beckoning, he walked to where Guthrinc was keeping watch. Still scowling, the Viking followed.

‘You would pick a fight with Turold?’ the Mercian said when only Guthrinc could overhear. ‘No. Something else has been gnawing at you for too long now. What truly irks you?’

For a moment, Kraki chewed down on his anger. Then he swept an arm out towards the lonely countryside. ‘What is there for us here? When we left England, you promised us gold and glory. But gold does not come any easier in Constantinople than anywhere else in this miserable world. We will not be able to buy ourselves a new beginning until we have earned it.’

‘The coin will come. We have earned a little.’

‘Little. Aye, that is a good word.’ Kraki hawked up a mouthful of phlegm and spat at his feet. ‘We are trusted only with work that would not tax a child. The Romans laugh at us, when they are not treating us like the dirt beneath their feet. And for what? Pay that barely stills my rumbling belly.’ He hammered one fist against his chest. ‘We are the warriors who risked all against the fiercest army in the west. Where are our rewards? We came here to join the Varangian Guard. Those bastards have more gold than they can ever spend, and more glory too.’

Hereward stared across the wide plateau to where the mountains rose up in the distance, trying to find words. Kraki spoke true. For all their sacrifices, they deserved much more than this. Yet only gold, and a lot of it, would buy their way into the ranks of the emperor’s elite guard. He felt the weight of his burden. Without a moment’s doubt, his spear-brothers had followed him into a battle which had seemed unwinnable, and in defeat they had been forced to leave behind kin, friends, home. Where would he find the fortune required to repay them for such loyalty?

‘If we stay here, the Romans will destroy us by degrees,’ Kraki said, releasing the words he had kept tight inside him.

‘And if we flee, we will be running for ever,’ Hereward countered. ‘Would you be known as the cowards who abandoned England, and then ran from every hardship?’

The Viking shook his head and looked away, wrestling with his doubts. He would not be easily placated, Hereward could see. This was not like Kraki at all. No battle had ever seemed too great for him to fight.

Guthrinc glanced over at his friend, a wry smile playing on his lips. ‘Do I hear the whining of a babe in arms?’ he murmured.

‘You would be happy hunting fowl with your bow,’ the Viking spat. ‘Some of us want a just reward for the use of our strong right arm.’

‘You are full of vinegar,’ Guthrinc replied, chuckling. ‘You would be sour even if the gold came up to the top of your beard.’

Kraki grunted. ‘Chance would be a fine thing.’

‘Wait.’ Guthrinc’s attention snapped towards the horizon. Narrowing his eyes at the dust cloud, he said, ‘There is more than one rider. I count three …’ He squinted. ‘No, four … more. A war-band. It looks to me as though they are chasing the other one down.’

‘Turks? Here?’ Hereward furrowed his brow. At first the Seljuks had merely crept across the edges of the empire from the south and the east, but in recent years that trickle had become a deluge. Grown lazy on their wealth, the Romans had done little to fight for their land, as if this problem would somehow fade like the mist under the sun. Facing no resistance, the Turks had grown fearless. But surely any war-band would not venture this far west and risk waking the sleeping beast?

‘Ready yourselves,’ he called, turning back to his men. ‘Lie low and wait for my command.’

As one, the spear-brothers fell silent, dropping down into the long grass so that it seemed they had never been there. Guthrinc kneeled to hide his huge frame. Peeling aside the green curtain, he watched the riders approach.

‘If this is none of our business, we let them ride by,’ Hereward breathed beside him.

At first the English could have been alone for a hundred miles with only the singing wind for company. But then the ground began to throb. The sound of hoofbeats rumbled across the grasslands. When Hereward peered over Guthrinc’s shoulder, he glimpsed a dark smudge taking shape in the dust, gradually coalescing into a man hunched over the neck of his horse.

‘A Roman,’ Guthrinc murmured.

‘How can you tell?’

‘He carries a standard, the eagle with two heads. Tattered, it is.’

‘He has been in a fight, then.’ Hereward weighed this information, then craned his neck back and whistled a sharp blast through his teeth. The grass swished. Deep in their hiding places, his men would be stiffening as they raised their spears and shields.

If this was a Roman soldier being run down by enemies, Hereward knew they would have no choice but to act. He felt a tremor of passion run through him. It had been too long since his blood had been up, and he had grown afraid that the dullness of the days had taken the edge off him. Deep in his head, he heard a hungry whisper from the part of him that he had grown to hate, the devil that lusted for slaughter and filled him with a rage that made him blind to all reason.

As the riders left the barren landscape and plunged into the grass, the dust drifted away to reveal eight men hard on the heels of the fleeing Roman. To Hereward’s eyes, they did not look like Turks – they wore hauberks and helms that gleamed in the setting sun.

Guthrinc cocked his head to one side. ‘Can this be? Normans?’

‘They are everywhere,’ Kraki sniffed. ‘They know how to make good coin with their strong right arm.’

When the leading rider neared, the Mercian could see that the warrior’s face was twisted with terror. His leather armour was filthy with the dirt of the road, and his horse seemed exhausted. Spittle sprayed from its mouth as it veered through the grass. In contrast, the closest pursuer was bearing down upon them fast, sword raised to take the Roman’s head.

Hereward tapped Guthrinc on the shoulder. The English oak knew the command without looking. Snatching his bow from his back, he nocked an arrow in one fluid movement, took aim, and loosed it. His shaft rammed into the forehead of the attacking warrior, flinging him off the back of his mount. When his horse reared up in shock, confusion erupted among the war-band. Milling in the long grass, the Normans searched this way and that for the enemies they now knew were hidden nearby.

Hereward felt the blood thunder into his head, and his devil cry out in anticipation, but he was no longer strong enough to resist it. With a roar, he burst into the open, axe in hand. At his heels, the rest of the English surged out, yelling. The Normans fought to keep their mounts under control, shouting warnings.

Guthrinc towered up, loosing another shaft in a blur, and then another. One arrow splintered harmlessly upon a shield, but the other smacked into the chest of one of the riders. Flailing, the man tried to wrench the arrow out, even as blood bubbled up over his fingers.

The Normans had the advantage of horseback, and they hacked down with their double-edged swords. But the courage of the English – some would say madness – had thrown the enemy into disarray. Spears herded their beasts into a frenzy and stabbed at thighs and arms. So many weapons bristled that the Norman shields were not enough.

As one rider tumbled back with a scream, Hereward thumped his axe down, splitting the man’s face in two before he had even hit the ground. Kraki ripped his blade through the leg of another, and Sighard, Hiroc and Hengist unseated a third.

The surviving Normans were not stupid. Seeing they were outmatched, they rounded their horses and spat epithets as they thundered away. In response, the English shook their spears in the air and cheered. Hereward could see that even that short battle had been good for them. Grins sprang to lips and cheeks flushed with passion. Men whose spirits had been whittled away suddenly remembered who they were in the thick of a fight. He felt proud. Brave men, all of them. He would give them what they deserved, however much it cost him.