The Flame Bearer (The Last Kingdom Series, Book 10) (35 page)

‘You’re wounded,’ my son said.

‘It’s nothing,’ I said, then laughed. I remember laughing at that moment, and I remember my son frowning at me in puzzlement. What I remember best of all, though, was the sudden certainty that the gods were with me, that they would fight for me, that my sword would be their sword. ‘We’re going to win,’ I told my son. I felt as if Odin or Thor had touched me. I had never felt more alive and never felt more certain. I knew there would be no more mistakes and that this was no dream.

I had come to Bebbanburg and Bebbanburg would be mine.

‘Rorik!’ I called. ‘You have your horn?’

‘Yes, lord.’

I pushed through my men, going back through the upper gate. Finan had taken fifty men down the steps to rescue Gerbruht’s small group, and those fifty were still there, hurling the prisoners’ weapons, mail coats and clothing across the high stone wall.

And I realised that men often see what they want to see. My cousin could see about a hundred of us huddled by the northern gate, and it must have seemed to him that we had retreated and were now caught between his overpowering force and the vicious Norsemen outside. He saw victory.

Æthelhelm saw the same. He could count, and he could see that we were outnumbered and on the lower ground. He could see we were trapped, and as the sun sank towards the western hills he must have known the elation of imminent revenge.

Except I had woken from my unreal daze. Suddenly I knew how my wolves would fight for the rest of this day. ‘Finan,’ I called, ‘keep your men out of sight till you hear the horn! Then leave six men to help Gerbruht and bring the rest to join us. You’ll be a rearguard!’ There was no need to explain further. Finan, when he led his men up out of the shadows, would see what I wanted him to do. He nodded, and just at that moment the church bell, which had been tolling ever since we broke into the fortress, stopped, and my cousin’s men gave a loud cheer.

‘What’s happening?’ Finan asked.

‘Æthelhelm got in somehow. With maybe sixty or seventy men? We’re outnumbered.’

‘Badly?’

‘Badly enough.’

Finan must have sensed my mood because he offered me a wide grin, or maybe he was just trying to encourage his men, who were all listening. ‘So that bastard Æthelhelm is here,’ he called up to me. ‘We’re outnumbered and they have the high ground. Does that mean we’re attacking?’

‘Of course it does!’ I shouted back. ‘Wait for two blasts of the horn, then come!’

‘We’ll be there!’ he called, then turned away to hurry his men, who were shepherding naked prisoners into the gully between the rock and the outer wall.

A horn sounded. Not mine, but coming from the centre of the fortress. It sounded a long and mournful note and I thought my cousin must be advancing his wall, but when I went back through the upper gate I saw that it heralded a single horseman who approached us. The hooves of his big stallion sounded loud on the rock. He was still some distance away, walking the horse slowly, and his face was hidden by cheek-pieces. For a moment I hoped it was my cousin, but he was still with his shield wall, and I could see Æthelhelm among the dark red cloaks on the high ground. So the approaching warrior had to be a champion, sent to taunt us.

I turned my back on him and looked for my son. ‘How many of our men have spears?’ I asked him.

‘Maybe ten? Not too many.’

I chided myself for not thinking of spears sooner, because doubtless Finan’s men had just hurled a few over the outer wall, but ten should be enough. ‘When we attack,’ I told my son, ‘put those spearmen in the second rank. They won’t need shields.’ I did not wait for his response, but walked to meet the horseman.

It was Waldhere, who had arrived with Æthelhelm, but who must have joined my cousin as soon as he could. He curbed the horse some twenty paces from my shield wall and opened his cheek-pieces so that I could see his face. He wore the same bearskin cloak he had worn on the day of Einar’s arrival. The heavy garment must have been hot, but it made him look huge, especially on horseback. His hard face was framed by his battle-scarred helmet that was crowned with an eagle’s clawed foot, while his mail-clad forearms, like mine, were ringed with gold. He was a warrior in his glory and he watched as I approached, then picked something from his yellow teeth and flicked whatever he found towards me. ‘Lord Uhtred,’ he said, meaning my cousin, ‘offers you the chance to surrender now.’

‘He didn’t dare come and tell me that himself?’ I asked.

‘Lord Uhtred doesn’t talk to earslings.’

‘He talks to you.’

For some reason that mild insult made him angry. I saw the grimace and heard the suppressed fury in his voice. ‘You want me to kill you now?’ he growled.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘please.’

He sneered at that and shook his head. ‘I would kill you with pleasure,’ he said, ‘but Lord Uhtred and Lord Æthelhelm want you kept alive. Your death will be their entertainment in the hall tonight.’

‘Get off your horse and fight me,’ I responded, ‘because your death will entertain my men.’

‘If you surrender now,’ he went on, ignoring my challenge, ‘your death will be quick.’

I laughed at him. ‘Too frightened to face me, Waldhere?’

He just spat at me for answer.

I turned my back on him. ‘This is Waldhere,’ I shouted at my men, ‘and he’s too frightened to fight me! I’ve offered, and he refused. He’s a coward!’

‘Then fight me instead!’ My son walked out of the shield wall.

In truth I did not want any of us to fight Waldhere, not because I feared his skill, but because I wanted to attack the enemy before they found their courage. The men who faced us, who clashed their swords against their shields, were not cowards, but men must summon the resolve to advance into death’s embrace. We all fear the shield wall, only a fool would say otherwise, but my men were ready for the horror, and my cousin’s men were only just recovering from the shock of realising they must fight for their lives in this late afternoon. The church bell had jarred them into panic. They had expected another dull evening, instead they faced death, and it takes a man time to ready himself for that meeting. Besides, they knew who I was, they knew my reputation. Their priests and leaders were telling them they would win, but their fears were telling them that I did not lose, and I wanted to attack while those fears gnawed at their courage, and fighting Waldhere delayed that attack. Which was why he had ridden to us, of course. His demand that we surrender, a demand he knew I would reject, was to give the defenders time to summon their resolve. And his riding alone to confront me showed those defenders he did not fear us. It was all a part of the dance of death that always precedes battle. ‘And who,’ he asked my son, ‘are you?’

‘Uhtred of Bebbanburg,’ my son answered.

‘I don’t fight puppies,’ he sneered. His horse, a fine grey, suddenly tossed his head and skittered sideways on the rock. Waldhere calmed the stallion. ‘If you surrender,’ he spoke to me now, but loudly enough for my men to hear, ‘then your warriors will live.’ He raised his voice to make absolutely certain that all of my men could hear the offer repeated. ‘Lay your weapons down! Lay your shields down, and you will live! You will be given safe passage south! Lay down your shields and live!’

There was a clatter behind me as a shield hit the rock. I turned, appalled, to see the tall man wearing the dark blue cloak and the fine silver helmet stride from the shield wall. He had his cheek-pieces closed, obscuring his face. He had thrown down his shield and now walked towards Waldhere. Finan had told me that this was Kettil, the young and fastidious Dane. ‘Kettil!’ I snarled.

‘Yes, lord?’ Kettil answered from behind me. I turned, frowning, to see Kettil in an iron helmet and wearing no cloak. ‘Lord?’ he asked, puzzled.

I looked back to the tall man. His helmet, I could see now, was chased with a pattern of interlocking Christian crosses, while another cross, forged from gold, hung at his breast. Kettil was a pagan and would never wear such things. I was about to demand that the coward pick up his damned shield and take his place back in the wall, but before I could speak he drew his long-sword and pointed it at Waldhere. ‘This puppy,’ the man said, ‘would fight you.’ He had not thrown down his shield as a sign of surrender, but because Waldhere carried no shield and he would offer the horseman a fair fight. ‘If you have the courage to face me,’ he went on, ‘which I doubt.’

‘No!’ I shouted.

Waldhere glanced at me, puzzled and intrigued by my response to the tall man’s offer to fight. ‘Are you frightened I’ll kill your puppy?’ Waldhere sneered at me.

‘Fight me!’ I almost begged him. ‘Fight me! Not him!’

He laughed at me. He did not know why I was suddenly so agitated, but he had understood that I did not want him to fight the tall man who had defied him, and so, of course, he accepted the challenge. ‘Come, puppy,’ he said, then swung down from his saddle. He unhooked the cloak’s clasp and let it fall so that its weight did not obstruct his sword arm.

I seized the tall man’s arm. ‘No! I forbid it!’

The dark eyes in the helmet’s shadow looked at me calmly. ‘I am your prince,’ he said, ‘you do not command me.’

‘What are you doing here?’ I demanded.

‘I’m killing this impudent man,’ Æthelstan said, ‘of course.’

I heard the hiss as Waldhere drew his sword from its scabbard, and I tightened my grip on Æthelstan’s arm. ‘You can’t do this!’ I said.

He gently removed my hand. ‘You command men, Lord Uhtred,’ he said, ‘and you command armies, but you do not command princes. I obey God and I obey my father and I no longer obey you. You should obey me, so now let me do my duty. You’re in a hurry to win this battle, aren’t you? So why waste time?’ He pushed me gently away, then walked towards Waldhere. ‘I am Æthelstan,’ he said, ‘Prince of Wessex, and you can lay down your sword and swear me loyalty.’

‘I can gut you like the scrawny puppy you are,’ Waldhere snarled, and, because Æthelstan was holding his sword low, Waldhere attacked fast, striking high, wanting the fight to be over in a heartbeat.

Waldhere was a big man, tall, broad-chested, solid, and muscled. Æthelstan matched his opponent’s height, but he was thin like his grandfather Alfred. He looked frail beside Waldhere, though I knew that frailty was deceptive. He was sinewy and quick. Waldhere’s opening stroke was a lunge at Æthelstan’s throat, and it was fast. To those of us watching it seemed destined to slit Æthelstan’s gullet, but he just swayed aside, almost contemptuously, and did not even bother to lift his blade as Waldhere’s sword slid past his neck. It touched, but did not break his mail coif. ‘Are you ready to begin yet?’ he taunted Waldhere.

Waldhere’s answer was a second attack. He wanted to use his weight to beat Æthelstan down. He had brought his blade back fast and still Æthelstan did not raise his sword, and Waldhere bellowed like a bull in heat and used both hands to ram the sword at Æthelstan’s belly, charging at the same time, reckoning to skewer the prince and drive him to the ground where he could rip Æthelstan’s guts to bloody shreds. He must have weighed twice what the younger man weighed, and he saw his blade going where he aimed it and the bellow turned into a shout of victory, then suddenly the blade was deflected as Æthelstan used his left hand to parry the lunge. That parry should have torn his hands bloody, even severed his fingers, but he wore a glove that had iron strips sewn into the leather. ‘A trick,’ he was to tell me, ‘that Steapa taught me.’ And as Waldhere’s sword slid uselessly into air, Æthelstan punched his sword hilt into Waldhere’s face. ‘A trick,’ he later said, ‘that you taught me.’

He hit hard. I heard the blow and saw the blood from Waldhere’s broken nose. I saw Waldhere stagger away, not because he had been beaten off balance, but because he could not see. The pommel of Æthelstan’s sword had struck his left eye, destroying it, and the pain was confusing what was left of his vision. He turned, bringing his sword back, but the blow was weak, and Æthelstan swatted it aside and then shouted his own cry of victory as he made his one stroke of the fight. It was a back-handed swing and it crunched into Waldhere’s neck and I saw Æthelstan grimace with the effort of dragging the blade back, sawing it as it broke through the mail coif, as it broke skin and muscle, as it severed the big blood vessels and so sliced to the big man’s spine. There was a spray of blood that soaked Æthelstan’s fine helmet, a red mist that the men watching the fight from the heart of the fortress could see plainly. And they could see their champion fall.

The sound of blades beating on shields had faltered, then stopped altogether as Waldhere staggered away from Æthelstan. The big man dropped his sword, put both hands to his neck, then collapsed to his knees. For a heartbeat he looked at Æthelstan with a puzzled expression, then fell forward and twitched his last beside his discarded cloak. My men were cheering as Æthelstan walked to the dead man’s horse and hauled himself into the saddle. He rode a few paces towards the enemy, flaunting his victory, then cleaned his sword-blade on the grey stallion’s mane.

‘Now!’ I shouted. ‘Spearmen in the second rank! And follow me!’

We had wasted enough time. Now we had a battle to fight and a fortress to win and I knew just how to win it.

So we attacked.

There were two ways I could attack. One was to advance into the face of my cousin’s shield wall, while the other was to use the long rugged ramp that led to the great hall, the route we had taken when we first entered the fortress. Once at the top of that ramp we would have to assault Æthelhelm’s household warriors who waited at the head of the steep rock stairs. That would be a nasty business. Attacking uphill is always grim, and the steeper the climb, the nastier it is. The alternative was to charge my cousin’s long wall. Most of that wall was two ranks, in places three, and a shield wall of two or three ranks is broken far more easily than a wall of four, five, or even six ranks. I wanted to advance with at least four ranks, so my wall would have no great width, and though I was confident my fierce wolves would smash their bloody way through the centre of my cousin’s thinner wall, the sight of my short wall advancing would bring Æthelhelm’s battle-hardened household warriors down from the fortress’s summit. And while we were cutting though the centre, the wings of the enemy would wrap around us. All of the enemy’s forces would be in the same place, surrounding us, and though that did not mean we would be defeated, it would be a bloody and prolonged fight and the casualties would be higher than in a short and savage attack, so there really was no choice. We had to do it the hard way.