A blade arced down from Starkad’s right. Coming over his shield. He hauled his sword up, a clumsy parry with the guard. Something hit the left side of his helmet, hit very hard. Stunned — the clangour ringing in his head — he staggered, his vision swimming.
From all directions the deafening, terrible din of battle. Trapped in a surging crush of bodies. Feet scrabbling, Starkad fought to stay upright in its eddies.
A vicious edge of steel bit into the top of his shield, through the leather binding, down into the linden boards. A splinter gashed his forehead. His legs were shaking, so tired. He hunkered down behind his shield. Another blow landed, took out a chunk. He bent his knees, tried to dig in his heels, get a firm stance. He had to fight back, lead by example. He was an eorl.
A flash of light to Starkad’s right. A ghastly scream. The sword embedded in Eomer’s stomach. His friend’s face white with shock. The cornutus withdrawing the blade. Eomer crumpling. Starkad twisted, lunged, his body behind the blow. Another scream. Starkad’s blade slicing deep across the soldier’s thighs, scraping on bone. Starkad and the cornutus tangled together. Starkad shoved him away. He fell. Two neat steps and Starkad brought up his sword.
‘Please …’ A bloodied hand raised in supplication.
Starkad smashed the heavy sword down; one, two, three times.
The press was clearing, the movement now all in the direction of the enemy.
‘Out! Out! Out!’ The triumphant, traditional cry of the Angles rumbled down the hillside, pursued the cornuti as they fled into the wood.
Starkad took in the stricken field. Everywhere were discarded and broken spears and swords, shields and helmets, even mailcoats. Everywhere the dead and the dying lay in their own blood and filth, and the living stood bent over with the enormity of it all. A grassy sward reduced to a shambles. But it was over. Now to count the cost.
Eomer was sitting, supported by another warrior. His hands were pressed to the jagged hole in his war shirt. The blood was flowing slowly but already had pooled in his lap, clotting the rings of his mail, staining the thighs of his trousers black.
‘I will get …’
‘No,’ Eomer gasped. ‘Gut wound. No point.’
Starkad dropped his sword, got to his knees. He tried to remove his helmet, but the blow had dented it out of shape. Someone levered it off for him. Blood from his forehead ran into Starkad’s eyes.
‘Enough to enter Woden’s hall.’ Eomer tried to smile. ‘I hope.’
Starkad shuffled forward. The other warrior moved, and Starkad cradled his friend.
‘Tell my mother, and Aeva.’ Eomer winced. ‘Tell them I died well.’
Starkad buried his head in his friend’s neck, crying.
‘Time to go.’ Guthlaf was standing above them, bloodied but unhurt. ‘The atheling has ordered we move.’
Five times at the point of the Swinehead and Guthlaf was still alive, this time seemingly unscathed. It should have been him, not Eomer. Starkad could not reply.
‘Time to go,’ Guthlaf repeated.
Starkad sobbed.
‘You are an eorl,’ Guthlaf said. ‘Show yourself one.’
Starkad glared, about to curse the old man, curse him to Niflheim and Hel.
‘He is right.’ Eomer gripped Starkad’s arm with a bloody hand. ‘You are my eorl. Do the last thing for me.’
Starkad shook his head.
‘The Choosers of the Slain will take me.’ Eomer gripped him harder. ‘Do it, as I love you, do it.’
Starkad knew they were right. He kissed Eomer, held him close, told him he loved him, whispered Woden’s last words to Balder in his ear. Then Starkad drew his knife, and cut his friend’s throat.
After, Guthlaf helped him to his feet. ‘Leading men is not all feasting and giving gold. You did well. You are eorl to all in the crew.’
Men were busy all over the meadow. Starkad took his place under his draco. Four of his crew had died in the clash, two had been helped out afterwards. There were six with serious wounds but who could still march. Starkad sent men back to collect such of the plunder as was light and would not hold back their progress. As they did so, he got the remainder in order.
Arkil’s horn sounded, and the reduced column resumed its limping march to the sea.
The trees — mature oak and beech — made a dappled world of shadow. Under their spreading branches the undergrowth was sparse, but enough to conceal an ambush. Starkad put it out of his thoughts. He had seen Arkil send out scouts. The atheling was a true leader, a true Himling.
‘We must have been seen,’ said a voice in the ranks.
‘No,’ Starkad said, ‘they knew Arkil’s name.’
They trudged on, pondering the bad implications of that.
‘Arkil was here last year, with Morcar,’ Guthlaf said.
Starkad smiled, but with no humour. ‘Morcar would have left none alive to say their names.’
‘They must have taken Ashhere’s missing boat,’ someone said.
‘None with Ashhere would betray us.’ Starkad was certain.
‘Yet they knew Arkil was coming,’ Guthlaf said.
There was no answer to that.
Through gaps in the foliage a high sky of mackerel-patterned clouds could be seen. Lower, light clouds pushed to the east. A fair wind, if they could make the ships. Not more than three miles to go.
Ahead, the column was marching out into the sunlight. Before Starkad reached the edge of the wood, he knew it was not good. A low groan of disappointment from the men at the front. Then he heard Arkil’s horn, and the order came back down the track.
‘Shieldwall! Form on the atheling. Last crew as reserve. Wounded form as their rear ranks.’
Again Starkad brought his men into the warhedge on the right of Wiglaf’s crew. They were about twenty paces out of the wood, the reserve at the tree line.
This time it was an army they faced. The Romans were drawn up on a gentle hill, a stream at its foot, open country in front, smudges of smoke in the sky behind. Red-crested legionaries in the centre, auxiliaries on either side, all backed by archers. A formidable phalanx, with cavalry further out on both wings. Starkad counted their standards, their frontage, gauged their depth, tried to estimate their numbers. Three thousand or more, perhaps quite a few more, a third of them mounted. In a good position, standing in good order.
‘Well, that would seem to be that,’ Guthlaf said.
‘Heart and courage. Some of us may win through.’ Starkad did not believe it, but he felt it was the sort of thing an eorl should say.
‘Heart and courage,’ some of the men muttered uncertainly.
‘It is no more than a mile to the ships.’ Starkad added the lie gamely, and none of the duguth or the warriors chose to correct him.
The wind sighed through the big trees behind them, hissed sibilant in the jaws of the dracones above. A horse neighed in the enemy array.
‘Another herald.’
The Roman rode down the slope, forded the stream in a cloud of spray, cantered towards the Angles. Mounted on a magnificent black horse, this was an officer of high rank, his muscled armour gilded and chased. He reined back to a walk, and brought his charger to a standstill about as far as a boy could toss a stone from the shieldwall. Bareheaded, hair and full beard artfully curled, he looked like a portrait on a coin of an emperor from a previous age.
‘Arkil, son of Isangrim.’ The Roman spoke the language of Germania with an accent from somewhere near the Rhine. ‘You lead brave men. Too brave to waste their lives in a hopeless cause.’