Warriors of Ethandun (34 page)

‘You should know …' he began hesitantly. ‘You should know that whatever happens I fight on the King's side and
when it gets to battle – stay out of my way.'

‘We know, Sire. Ealdorman Aethelnoth has told us what to expect. Don't you worry that we'll be panicked. We're all steady men. We will do what we have to do, whether you are able to lead us or not.'

Dan was relieved by that. He had done what he could to warn those he might hurt and now he had to concentrate on staying in control of himself and staying out of the line. A bear in a shield wall was a recipe for disaster.

The smell of fear was growing steadily more powerful, raising the hairs on his neck. The bear was waiting.

Ursula heard Finna's voice in her mind and recoiled.

‘Goddess, battle is coming – are you ready?'

Suddenly, as if someone had switched on the radio, Ursula could hear. She could hear the roar of the wind and the sound of many men breathing, shuffling, talking – in Danish. It was disorienting and it took her a moment to realise what was going on. She could feel the warmth of the sun on her face and feel the breeze lift her hair. She was outdoors somewhere but could see nothing. She was somehow experiencing the world from Finna's perspective and Finna was blind.

‘Show me what there is to see,' Finna's voice commanded and Ursula had no choice but to obey.

It was as if someone had turned on the light; it blinded her. For one fraction of an instant she saw the view from too many eyes at once, a dizzying, blinding confusion of images, of colours, textures and perspectives. She panicked. It made no sense. It was too much, a kind of
sensory overload, and then she found a way to see from a single viewpoint at a time – it did not much matter whose. She was there at the battlefield and it was so much like her earlier vision of what was to come that, had it been possible, she would have gasped. It was everything she had thought it would be.

Finna was standing beside Guthrum, who was dressed in all his war gear – his mail and polished helm, his thick cloak and jewelled brooch, his stout axe, his sword and spear. His heavily muscled arms were adorned with arm rings. He narrowed his eyes against the wind, which caught his hair and made the raven banner flap. Ursula had rarely seen a man so confident of victory, so certain of his own strength. She balked a little when she saw the reason for his certainty. Before him lay all the might of the Danes. All were well-armed warriors, their spears sharpened on a whetstone to a fine point. They had the high ground – an ancient fort – but the ground underfoot was trampled and heavy, the churned grass swiftly returning to mud. The weather was fine and a bright spring sun glinted on the polished metal of their helms, on the steel of their blades and the glowing colours of their shields; it was a good day. Finna was excited. Ursula felt it, which meant that the exchange between them was not all one way. To see what Ursula saw, Finna had to weaken the barrier that divided them. It was not much, but it was a connection that Ursula could perceive and that perhaps she could use. Free to move vantage point if nothing else, Ursula sought out what she most wanted to see: Aelfred's troops and Dan.

Aelfred was mounted on a black horse. He wore no helm, so that his reddish hair and battered gold crown gleamed as he rode. The Wessex men were simply dressed and many who stood in the shield wall were bareheaded, and their hair blew around as they began the climb. They marched steadily but cautiously, for should anyone slip the whole line could fall. Ursula could feel no connection with her body, or indeed with Finna's, so she felt no tightening of her guts, no panicky beating of her heart, but she was afraid nonetheless. What could Finna make her do?

The thin line of men making their way towards her looked vulnerable. Ursula could see that some of the men seemed barely more than boys – beardless and slim built. How could they stand against the hard men of the Danes? And, if Aelfred fell, what would become of Dan? He had bound himself to Aelfred; his fate was somehow tied up with the King's. The odds did not seem to be stacked in Aelfred's favour.

Finna pulled her back so that she could see Guthrum's face as he turned to speak to her. The look he gave her was calculating, wary, respectful, but not loving. Ursula wondered if that was what Finna had expected to see. ‘You are sure you can set their line on fire?'

‘I am sure, My Lord. The power of the Goddess is great and you may be sure her power will answer my will.' Finna's thin voice was so full of certainty that Ursula believed her. But if she could see what she chose, surely she could flee. She tried to take herself back to where her body lay, but nothing happened. Her consciousness was like a balloon, free to follow the wind yet anchored firmly
to Finna's controlling hand.

‘Wait on my command.'

At least Ursula knew Finna's plan and that gave her some advantage, didn't it? She was not powerless; she had heard Taliesin sing even when locked in the world of nothingness. She was not so completely a prisoner as Finna believed.

Dan was afraid – afraid for the young boys in the front of the line, gripping their shields and their spears with white knuckles, fighting for calm. A couple were sick, which did not help as the ground was heavy and slippery without their adding to it. He felt sick himself. He saw Gunnarr in the line, flanked by two reliable veterans of Aethelnoth's group. Dan knew that Aethelnoth had given firm directions to kill him if he literally stepped out of line; Dan knew that Gunnarr knew this too. Dan had little doubt that the Dane would stand – he did not seem the type to dissemble. Gunnarr's face showed the total focus Dan had learned to recognise in fighters everywhere. It had hardened into a mask of concentration. Dan had every confidence that he would fight well.

Dan hung back a little – not out of fear, but because those had been his instructions. He kept his eyes on Aelfred's force, concentrating on them, checking that no one faltered. There was one very bad moment when one of the men in the wall lost his footing and almost slipped, but a push from behind righted him. At Aelfred's signal the men behind began to beat their shields with their long knives. It was louder than any drumbeat, a thrilling
sound like the heartbeat of an army: rhythmic, powerful, stirring. It steadied them somehow, calmed them so that their hearts beat to that pulse rather than to the wilder beat of terror. The two armies were three steps from engagement – two – one. The first blow was struck and it began.

Ursula found herself drawn to the Wessex men's line. She could see the eyes of the Danes, blue eyes in weathered faces, squinting against the sun; hard eyes of men who had done this before, men who did not show fear, because the appearance of courage was itself a weapon. Their opponents were big men, tall and made stockier by their padded jerkins. They were so close she could smell their breath, see the texture of their skin, the whites of their eyes. Ursula had never fought in this claustrophobic formation. It was like being trapped in a crowd with nowhere to turn, like being pushed from behind into a forest of spikes, with nowhere to go but forward, no way to survive but to hold your ground, plant your feet and prod and poke and stab and push and try to stay standing.

There was a boy to her left, fair and freckled. Sweat poured down his face and his eyes were wide with terror. He was in danger of hyperventilating. He held his shield arm up and the man beside him, a grizzled veteran with blacksmith's arms, muttered, ‘Steady, lad. I'm by you. They'll not bite if you hold steady.' The lad nodded and chewed his lip and then moved in with his spear stabbing through the gap in the shield wall, probing to find soft, vulnerable flesh unprotected by the leather-covered
shields or by blade-repelling mail. On Ursula's right a man went down with a curse and a yell. The Vikings surged forward until the injured man was hauled back and another Wessex man took his place in a flurry of expletives.

Dan heard the Vikings yell and curse, heard Aelfred's men hurl insults and crude witticisms back, like a boozed-up football crowd in a brawl on some city street. The banter did not last long; it took too much breath and the men on both sides needed all they had to drag down the shields of the enemy. Each line used their spears, their war axes, their long knives and all their strength and ingenuity to pull down the enemies' shields, to open a crack in the defensive line, to turn the crack into a fissure and then into a full-scale collapse.

Once the shouting was over, it was a quiet battle, not so much the clash of metal as the steady thud and thump and punch of small confrontations. In the shield wall, each man had five immediate enemies – five men to kill or to be killed by. It was hard graft, gruelling and gritty work.

Dan saw the sweat glisten and fall, heard the men grunt as they thrust and yanked and clashed shield boss to shield boss when the lines got too close. There was no place here for brilliant swordsmen or for wild displays of courage. It was just the grind of line against line: a barrier forged of weary muscles used to the labour of the fields, of determination and the curious pack loyalty which made a man die for his mates.

Dan remained clear-headed, fully himself, until the line began to break on the right. A big heavy man had stumbled, had fallen backwards knocking back the man behind and the Danes had been swift to fill the hole and take full advantage, hacking at the Wessex line from behind as they poured into the breach. That end of the wall looked fit to fall, to break and to run. Dan dismounted and, yelling to the men of his company, threw himself into the gap. He pulled a young lad back, out of the reach of a Danish spear, and was rewarded by the grateful thanks of a familiar voice; it was the boy with the slingshot.

‘Stay safe!' Dan called.

Dan lost it the second a spear jolted his shield. He discarded the shield with its embedded spear and removed the head of the Danish spearman who had left it there with his bare hands. There was quite a lot of blood which soaked the men around him. It was to their credit that Aethelnoth's men did not panic. ‘Stay calm – he's one of ours: Aelfred's own berserker, blessed by all the saints. Hold steady.'

It was a kind of miracle that the line healed itself around the marauding bear who was unafraid of weapons of steel, who shrugged off the spears, batted away shields and had Guthrum's veteran warriors running back to the limited protection of the fortress. The Danish line was broken.

Dan was not, but he had lost control. He was a beast and he did not care what he killed. He was lost in the mayhem of blood and it was a pleasure. He fought his way through the line – though in truth little fighting was
necessary. No Dane would stand and battle one of Odin's own.

Ursula was dragged from her view of the battle by Finna's demands. Finna had her look at the two armies locked together, two armoured snakes killing each other in the sunlight. The Viking snake was twisting away, giving ground, collapsing in on itself, and Aelfred's men were winning.

‘Now, girl!' Guthrum shouted.

‘Burn!' Finna said.

Ursula's magic that had lain unused ignited within her at Finna's word. Without fully knowing what she did or why, Ursula engaged with her magic. After such a long time of self-denial and deprivation, she possessed and commanded it once more. She allowed herself to bask in the glory of wielding it again. She had held back for so long the relief and the pleasure were dizzying. It felt so right to let the flame burst forth, fired by her will alone, to let the wind blow petals of flame blossom like wild flowers in the hedgerow: red and orange and yellow blooming along the shield wall. Then in the next instant she knew it was not by her will but by Finna's and they were not flowers blooming but men burning: Aelfred's men. She had less than a heartbeat of freedom, an instant when Finna allowed her delight to loosen her control. She followed the tiny thread that Finna had permitted to connect her with Ursula's vision. It emerged from the unknowable heart of Finna and it was more than a thread: it was a path to finding her, a cord to bind her. Ursula
readied herself and then screamed out with all the power that she had.

‘
Dan!'

Suddenly Dan was distracted by an unnatural roar and a wall of heat – somehow the shields of Aelfred's army were aflame. Men dropped their shields, which burned with terrible ferocity, with a wild unearthly fire. Men screamed, struggling to disentangle themselves from the shield straps, stumbling over each other and falling on the churned ground – all discipline lost in their frantic efforts to flee the fire. The retreating, all but defeated Danes turned to press home their unexpected advantage. A fleeing army was a dead one.

‘Dan!'

The thought cut through his confusion; that thought was a beacon of clarity in the dark muddle that was Dan's animal mind. Ursula needed him. He lumbered behind the enemy lines seeking out the source of that clarion call. There was a man – the leader, Guthrum – and his bodyguard and standard-bearers. They all ran at Dan's approach. Dan thought of following, but got confused. There was another smaller creature. She had been standing next to the big one before he'd fled and there she remained, frozen for a moment. She was a thin, small female, Ursula's enemy, and she was held as if by a spell in his path. He had intended only to thrust her out of his way so that he could pursue Guthrum and somehow make him free Ursula, but this was the real enemy. He thought she would run, but she did not. She stayed as if rooted to
the spot and he knocked her off her feet, and from the awkward way that she landed he knew that she was dead.

Ursula saw the bear that was Dan approach. Ursula used all her will, all the strength she could find, to take her opportunity. She found that small connection that Finna had opened between them and instead of sending Finna the gift of her vision she sent her another gift, a small spark of Ursula's will, and she willed her to stay still. She held her immobile, just for a moment, as Dan ran towards her. Guthrum should have dragged Finna to safety, but he feared Odin's wrath as much as the next man and had left his little sorceress to do what she could to defend herself. It wasn't enough. Perhaps Ursula could blame what came next as much on Guthrum as upon herself. He ought to have saved the girl.