As he emerged from his hiding place, the warrior swept his sword in an arc that sent scarlet droplets showering across the snow. The Viking hesitated, his lips curling back from his teeth, and raised his own weapon. Hereward felt a rush of euphoria. Too slow, he thought. He could see the questions turning over in the other warrior’s face, the hint of unease in his eyes. Still trying to make sense of what he was seeing, the Northman swayed off balance, awkwardly preparing to thrust his spear.
Stepping over the whimpering monk, Hereward cleaved the haft in two, and followed through with another two-handed slice. At the last moment, the Viking lurched back a step so that the sword merely raised a trail of golden sparks from his mail shirt instead of carving him open. Losing his balance, he crashed down to one knee.
‘He is defenceless,’ the monk stuttered.
‘Good.’ Hereward angled his sword above the mail shirt and drove it into the man’s chest until the tip protruded from his back. The Northman gurgled, eyes frozen wide in shock. When Hereward withdrew the blade, hot blood trailed from the body where it had been opened to the air.
‘You did not have to kill him,’ the monk said, aghast.
‘He would have killed you without a second thought. And he helped slaughter all of them.’ Hereward nodded to the pile of villagers’ bodies.
Croaking, the dying warrior tried to call out to his comrades. Hereward hacked off his head with one blow and picked it up by the hair, studying it with contempt for a moment before hurling it deep into the forest.
‘What are you?’ the monk said in disgust.
‘Your saviour.’ Hereward felt the ecstasy of the kill already begin to ebb, and the resonant voice inside him called out for more blood. It throbbed in his head, in his very bones, the hungry urging of the thing that had lived with him since he was a boy. For a moment, he listened for the sound of approaching feet. They were hard and cold like their northern home, these mercenaries, he thought, and seasoned by battle. They would not be deterred by sentiment or fear. He had ghosted out of the trees to kill the stragglers when they put the village to the torch, glimpsed by the others only in passing, and he knew that one on one was no contest. But if they came in force he would be at a disadvantage. ‘They’ll find us soon,’ he murmured, trying to pierce the dense smoke. ‘I counted another four here. Probably more on the way.’
‘Yes… there are.’
‘Then you have a choice: stay here and be food for the ravens, or come with me.’ He could see that the monk thought both options equally abhorrent, and with a shrug he prowled into the frozen wood. He hadn’t gone far when he heard the sound of the monk scrambling to catch up.
‘Tell me you did not murder any of the villagers.’ Anger laced the monk’s voice, but he was fighting back tears of grief.
‘I did not.’
‘You are not from Gedley. What fight do you have with Redteeth’s band?’
‘Redteeth? That is their leader’s name?’ Hereward shrugged, wiping the sticky drips from his brow. ‘I am a man of Mercia. I was resting here in the village on my journey to Eoferwic. When the Northmen started their slaughtering, they made the error of trying to kill me too.’ Hereward thought back to the moment when, bleary-eyed from sleep, he had emerged from the house into the din of the attack. The raiding party roamed among the blazing houses, cutting down anyone who crossed their path. His first thought had been that the men who had pursued him from the court in London had finally caught up with him. Then, as he prepared to run, he had glimpsed a sight that turned a knife in the open wounds in his heart. A woman crying out as an axe split her skull, a small child sobbing at her side. The warrior winced. The vision had disinterred memories of two other women lying at his feet, their dead eyes staring blankly up at him. In an instant, his murderous rage had boiled up and after that he remembered only the iron scent of blood, the crack of bone and the throat-rending screams that followed the dance of his sword.
Away in the fog of burning echoed the sound of running feet and a cry of alarm, quickly answered. The Viking’s headless body had been discovered, Hereward surmised. He grabbed the monk by the arm and hauled him on. ‘Battle with your conscience when you are not in danger of having your head removed.’
The man stumbled along behind Hereward on weary legs. ‘They will not give up until they find us. Harald Redteeth can track a man through woodland far thicker than this-’
‘Quiet,’ Hereward snapped. ‘If you are planning to babble all the time, I will leave you behind.’
The monk glared at him. ‘Harald Redteeth will not rest until we are dead.’
‘And I will not rest until he is dead. Choose your side now. Only one of us will be left standing when this business is done.’
With the angry bellows of the raiders drawing closer, Hereward darted among the tangle of oaks and ash trees without waiting for a response. Cutting round a rocky outcrop that would hide them from their pursuers for a while, he plunged down a bank into a freezing stream, the exhausted monk struggling along close behind. The warrior felt his feet turn to ice in his leather shoes, but the discomfort was a small price to pay to ensure that no trail would be left to mark their passage.
As they splashed along, the monk gasped, ‘My name is Alric. My home is the monastery at Jarrow, but I have journeyed far and wide to spread God’s word.’
‘God seems to have forsaken this place.’ Hereward could see that the monk would be a burden in the coming battle. And his chatter was as irritating as the incessant drone of a horsefly. Hereward weighed the advantages of clouting the cleric unconscious and leaving him for the hunting party to find.
‘What are you thinking?’ Alric wheezed.
‘Ask me in a little while.’
Where the stream cascaded down a tumble of rocks, the warrior grasped a branch to lever himself out of the water. He hesitated, studying Alric for a moment before reaching out to help the monk. Stooping to cup his hands in the icy water, he swilled some of the blood away to reveal streaks of long blond hair, and a strong jaw. His eyes were a piercing pale blue. As the caked gore sluiced off, the blue-black marks of the warrior were uncovered on his upper arms, spirals and circles made by punching ashes into the skin with an awl. He saw the monk eyeing the gold rings of a man of status round his forearms and biceps, but he was not about to satisfy the curiosity he discerned in his companion’s eyes.
The monk relaxed a little when he could see that Hereward was not the devil he had first perceived. ‘You are not a common thief. You have had some tutoring,’ he remarked. ‘I can hear it in your voice.’
‘No questions.’
‘I would know what monster I accompany,’ Alric said defiantly.
Hereward turned and pressed his blade against the monk’s neck. ‘Any more and I will gut you with my sword Brainbiter.’
‘You would kill a man of God?’
‘I would kill anyone.’ The Mercian fixed his pale eyes on Alric, and saw something that surprised him: a deep, dark part of the monk wanted to die.
‘You do not scare me,’ Alric said, blinking away tears.
Ignoring him, Hereward glanced back along the stream. He absorbed the thinning light and the intensifying blizzard and knew that without shelter they would soon freeze to death. ‘They will be here soon,’ he said, turning to look into the darkening depths of the forest ahead. ‘How far to the next village?’
‘Half a day, at least. We will never survive the night.’
‘Is there any other shelter?’
Alric hesitated. ‘There is a woman who lives alone near here. She is wicce.’
‘Which way?’
‘No!’ Alric protested. ‘She carries out necromancies and enchantments and divinations. She is a heathen who denies the Paternoster and the Creed.’
As the shouts of their pursuers began to follow the path of the stream, Hereward grabbed Alric’s shoulders and shook him. ‘We do what we do to survive. You would rather die than break bread with a heathen?’