LITMIR.BIZ

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but I was to learn that only one man in twenty is a lover of battle. Such men were the most dangerous, the most skilful, the ones who reaped the souls and the ones to fear. I was such a one, and that day, beside the river where the blood flowed into the rising tide, and beside the burning boats, I let Serpent-Breath sing her song of death. I remember little except a rage, an exultation, a massacre. This was the moment the skalds celebrate, the heart of the battle that leads to victory, and the courage had gone from those Danes in a heartbeat. They had thought they were winning, thought they had trapped us by the burning ships and thought to send our miserable souls to the afterworld, and instead the fyrd of Defnascir came on them like a storm.

      ‘Forward!’ I shouted.

      ‘Wessex!’ Leofric bellowed, ‘Wessex!’ He was hacking with his axe, chopping men to the ground, leading the Heahengel’s crew away from the fiery ships.

      The Danes were going backwards, trying to escape us, and we could choose our victims and Serpent-Breath was lethal that day. Hammer a shield forward, strike a man off balance, thrust the blade forward, push him down, stab into the throat, find the next man. I pushed a Dane into the smouldering remnants of a campfire, killed him while he screamed, and some Danes were now fleeing to their unburned ships, pushing them into the flooding tide, but Ubba was still fighting. Ubba was shouting at his men to form a new shield wall, to protect the boats, and such was Ubba’s hard will, such his searing anger, that the new shield wall held. We hit it hard, hammered it with sword and axe and spear, but again there was no space, just the heaving, grunting, breath-stinking struggle, only this time it was the Danes who stepped back, pace by pace, as Odda’s men joined mine to wrap around the Danes and hammer them with iron.

      But Ubba was holding. Holding his rearguard firm, holding them under the raven banner, and in every moment that he held us off another ship was pushed away from the river’s bank. All he wanted to achieve now was to save men and ships, to let a part of his army escape, to let them get away from this press of shield and blade, and six Danish ships were already rowing out to the Sæfern sea, and more were filling with men and I screamed at my troops to break through, to kill them, but there was no space to kill, only blood-slicked ground and blades stabbing under shields, and men heaving at the opposing wall, and the wounded crawling away from the back of our line.

      And then, with a roar of fury, Ubba hacked into our line with his great war axe. I remembered how he had done that in the fight beside the Gewæsc, how he had seemed to disappear into the ranks of the enemy only to kill them, and his huge blade was whirling again, making space, and our line went back and the Danes followed Ubba who seemed determined to win this battle on his own and to make a name that would never be forgotten among the annals of the Northmen. The battle-madness was on him, the runesticks were forgotten, and Ubba Lothbrokson was making his legend and another man went down, crushed by the axe, and Ubba bellowed defiance, the Danes stepped forward behind him, and now Ubba threatened to pierce our line clean through, and I shoved backwards, going through my men and went to where Ubba fought and there I shouted his name, called him the son of a goat, a turd of men, and he turned, eyes wild, and saw me.

      ‘You bastard whelp,’ he snarled, and the men in front of me ducked aside as he came forward, mail coat drenched in blood, a part of his shield missing, his helmet dented and his axe blade red.

      ‘Yesterday,’ I said, ‘I saw a raven fall.’

      ‘You bastard liar,’ he said and the axe came around and I caught it on the shield and it was like being struck by a charging bull. He wrenched the axe free and a great sliver of wood was torn away to let the new daylight through the broken shield.

      ‘A raven,’ I said, ‘fell from a clear sky.’

      ‘You whore’s pup,’ he said and the axe came again, and again the shield took it and I staggered back, the rent in the shield widening.

      ‘It called your name as it fell,’ I said.

      ‘English filth,’ he shouted and swung a third time, but this time I stepped back and flicked Serpent-Breath out in an attempt to cut off his axe hand, but he was fast, snake fast, and he pulled back just in time.

      ‘Ravn told me I would kill you,’ I said. ‘He foretold it. In a dream by Odin’s pit, among the blood, he saw the raven banner fall.’

      ‘Liar!’ he screamed and came at me, trying to throw me down with weight and brute force, and I met him, shield boss to shield boss, and I held him, swinging Serpent-Breath at his head, but the blow glanced off his helmet and I leaped back a heartbeat before the axe swung where my legs had been, lunged forward, took him clean on the chest with Serpent-Breath’s point, but I did not have any force in the blow and his mail took the lunge and stopped it, and he swung the axe up, trying to gut me from crotch to chest, but my ragged shield stopped his blow, and we both stepped back.

      ‘Three brothers,’ I said, ‘and you alone of them live. Give my regards to Ivar and to Halfdan. Say that Uhtred Ragnarson sent you to join them.’

      ‘Bastard,’ he said, and he stepped forward, swinging the axe in a massive sideways blow that was intended to crush my chest, but the battle-calm had come on me, and the fear had flown and the joy was there and I rammed the shield sideways to take his axe strike, felt the heavy blade plunge into what was left of the wood and I let go of the shield’s handle so that the half-broken tangle of metal and wood dangled from his blade, and then I struck at him. Once, twice, both of them huge blows using both hands on Serpent-Breath’s hilt and using all the strength I had taken from the long days at Heahengel’s oar, and I drove him back, cracked his shield, and he lifted his axe, my shield still cumbering it, and then slipped. He had stepped on the spilt guts of a corpse, and his left foot slid sideways and, while he was unbalanced, I stabbed Serpent-Breath forward and the blade pierced the mail above the hollow of his elbow and his axe arm dropped, all strength stolen from it. Serpent-Breath flicked back to slash across his mouth, and I was shouting, and there was blood in his beard and he knew then, knew he would die, knew he would see his brothers in the corpse-hall. He did not give up. He saw death coming and fought it by trying to hammer me with his shield again, but I was too quick, too exultant, and the next stroke was in his neck and he staggered, blood pouring onto his shoulder, more blood trickling between the links of his chain mail, and he looked at me as he tried to stay upright.

      ‘Wait for me in Valhalla, lord,’ I said.

      He dropped to his knees, still staring at me. He tried to speak, but nothing came and I gave him the killing stroke.

      ‘Now finish them!’ Ealdorman Odda shouted, and the men who had been watching the duel screamed in triumph and rushed at the enemy and there was panic now as the Danes tried to reach their boats, and some were throwing down weapons and the cleverest were lying flat, pretending to be dead, and men with sickles were killing men with swords. The women from Cynuit’s summit were in the Danish camp now, killing and plundering.

      I knelt by Ubba and closed his nerveless right fist about the handle of his war axe. ‘Go to Valhalla, lord,’ I said. He was not dead yet, but he was dying for my last stroke had pierced deep into his neck, and then he gave a great shudder and there was a croaking noise in his throat and I kept on holding his hand tight to the axe as he died.

      A dozen more boats escaped, all crowded with Danes, but the rest of Ubba’s fleet was ours, and while a handful of the enemy fled into the woods where they were hunted down, the remaining Danes were either dead or prisoners, and the raven banner fell into Odda’s hands, and we had the victory that day, and Willibald, spear point reddened, was dancing with delight.

      We took horses, gold, silver, prisoners, women, ships, weapons and mail. I had fought in the shield wall.

      Ealdorman Odda had been wounded, struck on the head by an axe that had pierced his helmet and driven into his skull. He lived, but his eyes were white, his skin pale, his breath shallow and his head matted with blood. Priests prayed over him in one of the small village houses and I saw him there, but he could not see me, could not speak, perhaps could not hear, but I shoved two of the priests aside, knelt by his bed and thanked him for taking the fight to the Danes. His son, unwounded, his armour apparently unscratched in the battle, watched

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