I nodded. Geir and Steinthor were on the same side, the left flank of the line. On the other, Skapti took station, where there was room to swing his long Dane axe.
Einar chuckled, wiping the drips from the edge of his helmet. ‘Not horse, these. Fyrdmen on ponies. You won’t have to face mailed horse today, just the fat levy of some local noble.’
I watched the horsemen dismount; saw that most of them were in leather and had shields, spears and axes. Just like us.
One of them, mailed and shouting, bullied them into three ranks, again like us. There were a lot of them, perhaps twenty or so more than we were and they overlapped us. I heard the swish of Skapti’s axe, testing range.
The rain was invisible and soaking. We dripped, waiting in the bracken and heather.
Einar shook rain from his eyes and grunted, peering at the men below us. They were in no hurry to come at us and, suddenly, Einar strode over to Skapti. They had a brief, grunting conversation, then Skapti simply dropped his axe and hauled out the heavier of the two swords he wore, the one he called Shieldbreaker. Einar fell in behind us.
Skapti strode to the front, swinging his shield on to his arm. ‘We can’t wait. That’s what they want and they will be bringing up more men, I am thinking, before they take on the Raven Banner.’
There was a general mutter of agreement and Skapti nodded. ‘Boar snout. We have to break their shieldwall here, scatter them.’
He strode several paces to the front and everyone seemed to slide into position like a cunning toy. Shields overlapped, they crowded into a wedge, shoulders hunched into the shields, pushing. In front, Skapti pushed back, as if trying to hold them, his feet skidding on the bracken, a delicate balance between strength and footwork.
Balked, the men shoved; the power of the wedge grew as it moved downhill, with Skapti as a brake. With nowhere to go, I fell in at the rear, still with Valknut.
About twenty paces from the line of the fyrdmen and their overlapped shields, Skapti roared something and the men behind increased their effort. Skapti took two, three steps, raised his shield, lifted his legs off the ground and was shot forward, a huge battering ram at the point of the boar snout.
The fyrdmen’s shieldwall smashed apart; men were flung sideways. The Oathsworn were in among them then, the fight a grunting, flailing, slipping, sliding mess of whirling steel and blood and flying bone.
On the fringes, some of the fyrdmen dashed forward; two arrows spanged off their shields and they stopped, seeing Geir and Steinthor nocking fresh ones. They huddled behind their big round shields and backed off, all save two, who came on, heading for the Raven Banner and Valknut.
And me.
Valknut backed off a pace, hefted the axe and then hurled it. It cannoned off one man’s shield, spinning through the air into the bodies behind.
With a triumphant roar, he came stumbling at Valknut, who stuck the Raven Banner pole firmly in the ground, whipped out a long seax and, ducking under the swing and the man’s shield, kippered him open with a swipe along the belly. He was still running when his stomach opened and all the blue-white coils fell out like rope, tripping him.
The other one came at me. I was petrified … but I weathered his first rush; I felt his sword whack on my shield, bounce off the metal rim and just miss my nose.
He hacked a backstroke and, before I knew it, I had done what Gudleif and Gunnar Raudi had taken pains to teach me … I slammed the blunt point of my sword at the bottom of his shield, the force of the blow tilting it forward and exposing the whole shoulder and side of his neck.
Then I carved a stroke downward before he could recover. The blade going in felt no different to chopping wood, since it smashed into the shoulder and collar bone, half carving his arm from the socket.
He gave a shriek and fell away, dropping his sword, clutching at the wound as if to fasten the gaping sides together. I stood there, scarcely believing what I had done, my mouth gawping like a dead cod.
‘Finish him,’ growled Valknut and I looked at him, then back to the wounded man. No, not man. Boy. He fell, lay on his back, chest heaving, no longer even groaning. The blood flowed thickly out of him; by the time I was peering at him, the rain was pooling in the hollows of his unseeing eyes. No older than me …
I felt a smack on the back and whirled, sword up.
Steinthor held up a placating hand, chuckling. ‘Easy, Bear Killer. That was well done, as neat as any I have seen – but don’t gawp at it or you’ll end up lying beside him.’
But the fight was over. The fyrdmen – those not groaning or lying like little sacks on the sodden ground – were running, not even waiting to take their horses. The leader was down, carved up under the combined efforts of Einar and Skapti. Panting men knelt or stood, gasping, legs apart, heads down. One or two, I saw, were retching.
Steinthor expertly patted the corpse beside me, gave a grunt of satisfaction and came up with two small slivers of hacksilver and an amulet in the shape of a cross. He tossed the amulet to me and stuffed the silver down his boot. ‘Keepsake,’ he chuckled and moved on to the next.
Einar was cleaning his sword. Skapti Halftroll was moving among the bodies, making sure the fyrdmen were all dead.
Illugi fed something from a flask to one of our own, who lay shivering in the rain, hands clutching his stomach. Blood leaked between his fingers.
‘Tally?’ demanded Einar.
Skapti thumbed one side of his nose and snotted. ‘Eight of them dead, more who will feel how bad their wounds are when the fear that keeps them running wears off.’
‘Us?’
‘A few wounds. Harald One-eye’s serious; someone carved half his foot off, so we’ll have to carry him. And Haarlaug has a belly wound,’ answered Illugi.
‘Bad?’ asked Einar. Illugi paused, moved to the groaning man, knelt, sniffed and then came back to Einar.
‘Soup wound, I think, though it will take an hour to be sure. We’ll have to carry him and that will kill him, for sure.’
Einar stroked his wet chin and then shrugged. He drew out his short seax and moved to Haarlaug. Around him the other men collected themselves, stripping what they could find from the dead. The soft, silent, smirring rain dripped.
‘Haarlaug,’ said Einar. ‘You have a belly wound. Illugi Godi fed you some of his soup and he can smell it even so soon after.’
He let the words hang there. The man grunted, as if hit afresh. His face, already pale, went to milk and he licked dry lips. Then he nodded. He knew what it meant to smell Illugi Godi’s soup from your opened belly.
‘Make sure Thurid, my wife, gets what’s mine,’ he said. ‘And tell her I died well.’
Einar nodded. Someone thrust a seax at him and he took it, then wrapped Haarlaug’s hand tight round the hilt.
‘Give my regards to all those who have gone before,’ he said. ‘Say to them, “Not yet, but soon,” from me.’
Those nearest muttered their own prayers and nodded at Haarlaug, commending him to Valholl. Now that the moment was on him, though, his eyes rolled in panic and his mouth started working.
Einar was swift, lest Haarlaug lose hold and let his fear ruin his dignity. The short seax flashed across the white throat, leaving a red line and he thrashed and kicked for a few minutes, eyes bulging and Einar holding him, one hand on his mouth, the blood soaking his sleeve.
Then he stopped and Einar placed one hand over his face, closing Haarlaug’s wild eyes, leaving it there for a moment, kneeling. Illugi Godi chanted softly, almost under his breath. The blood pooled under Haarlaug’s lolled head.
Then Einar rose up. ‘Strip him quickly, then we go. Ottar, Vig, get the mail and weapons off that leader