Diocles rounded the hall, Castricius and eight of his men in his wake. ‘All done,’ he said.
‘Nailed up tight as a vestal’s cunt,’ Castricius said. ‘I left two to keep watch.’
‘The chickweed,’ Ballista said.
Diocles darted forward. As he crossed the twenty or so paces of open ground before the doors, an arrow whipped out from the tiny window high above. It missed the soldier by a hand’s breadth. He dived under the overhanging thatch.
Sparks dropping in the darkness. A glow from under Diocles’ hunched body.
When the chickweed was well alight, Diocles leaned out and swung it high on to the thatch. It hung there. The fire in it seemed to diminish. Then little tendrils of flame snaked out across the roof.
Diocles moved away north under the protection of the drooping eaves, took a roundabout route back.
Maximus touched Ballista’s arm, pointed. Three men with torches were moving towards the southern end of the building. They threw them cartwheeling over the gable wall, then faded back into the shadows.
The weather had been dry. The west wind breathed life into the flames.
Ballista sent runners to call Wada and Ivar and their followers to him. As in the east, just two warriors were to remain at the northern and southern ends. The wounded Heathobard Grim was to remain with the latter.
‘Watch the door,’ Ballista said. There should be twenty-six men spread out around him in the darkness. Each should have his bow trained on the door. He wondered if it would be enough.
‘The daemons of death are close.’ Castricius spoke softly in Latin. In the baleful firelight, smeared with soot, he looked like one himself.
The middle of the roof was blazing fiercely, the southern end flaring up. If the women had not already done so, this ghastly beacon would raise the countryside. Would relief arrive before the fire drove the defenders out or buried them under falling timbers?
‘Watch the door,’ Ballista said.
The outlines of black figures emerged up on the roof. Balanced precariously on the beams, they hacked at the burning and smouldering thatch. The great lumps they threw down fell like molten waterfalls.
There was no need for orders. Out of the darkness, arrows flew. The defenders on the roof were illuminated by the fires. They could not see the missiles coming. One after another, shafts found their mark and figures pitched into oblivion.
Above the door, a man’s tunic caught fire. In an awful dumb-show, he beat at it with his hands, until he missed his narrow footing and crashed to earth like a northern Icarus.
After that, the defenders withdrew, and no more ventured on to the roof.
The fire roared. The heat of it was hot on Ballista’s face even at a distance. Deep in the thatch, it seemed to breathe like a great beast. There was a horrible smell, all too like roast pork. Ballista thought of the Goths before Novae, the Persians at Arete, his own at Aquileia; all the men he had seen burnt.
A deep groan from within the hall, a sharp crack, and the southern end of the roof sagged. The first of the beams had burnt through. They must come soon. No one could abide in that inferno.
‘Watch the doors.’
The words were still on Ballista’s lips when the door flew open. On an instant arrows thrummed into the opening. The two warriors pushing the doors fell transfixed by many shafts.
Looking into the hall was like looking into a scene of divine punishment yet to be tenanted. The orange glow played on the empty high seat, the first pairs of great columns. No man could be seen in the swirling smoke.
They came with a yell, out from both sides where they had been huddled against the walls. They rushed together to form a shield-burg in the doorway. They were too slow, too clumsy in their desperation. Arrows plucked men off their feet, hurled them backwards. They collided with those behind. Those on the floor tripped those still on their feet. Ballista released, notched, released again. All around him others did the same. The doorway was filled with shafts flitting like bats.
Standing on their companions, treading them down, a dozen or more defenders linked shields in the opening. Arrows sprouted in the bright-painted boards. The men launched forwards. Arrows sliced all around them. They ran off to Ballista’s right, towards the southern gate in the fence. Wada the Short rose in front of them, other shapes at his side.
A terrible clatter as the fight was joined. Warriors cutting, hacking in the infernal light.
Ballista sensed men near him moving to join the melee. He searched but could not see the flash of the silver mask.
‘Maximus, Tarchon, Rikiar, Mord, stay with me.’
Heliodorus was reeling. The Egyptian’s helmet had been knocked off. His bald pate shone. A swordsman cleaved Heliodorus’s shoulder open. Wada cut Heliodorus’s killer near in half.
Still no silver mask. Ballista’s eyes flicked between the fight and the empty door.
Wada was in the middle of the foe. His blade flickered too fast to follow. The Harii was shouting, the words unintelligible in the uproar. His enemy fell around him. His brother was being avenged.
A flash of something moving in the hall. Gone before Ballista could focus.
Wada staggered. The man behind him swung another blow at his legs. Wada went down, swallowed in the chaos.
Distracted, Ballista did not see the men come from the hall. Six men, their leader’s face a mask of metal. They were on Ballista before he could shoot. He dropped the bow, snatched up his shield. Unferth’s blow split through the lindens, buckled the boss. Agonizing pain; Ballista dropped his shield. He got Battle-Sun in the way of the next downward cut. Unferth swung left and right. Ballista blocked. Sparks bright as lightning as steel met steel. Ballista was driven back. Everywhere the din of fighting, stunning the senses.
Ballista’s back bumped into the wall of an outbuilding. Cattle stamping and shifting, bellowing with fear on the other side. Unferth thrust. Ballista twisted. The tip of the blade scraped off his mail, jabbed into the wood. For a moment Ballista’s face was against the cold surface of the mask. The face of a young man, inhuman in its calm beauty.
Unferth grunted, stepped back, turning. Behind him, Rikiar hacked at his other leg. Unferth’s shield splintered under the blade. Pivoting, all his weight in the blow, Ballista swung. Battle-Sun took Unferth’s right arm, near the elbow. A scream, obscured by the metal. Unferth’s sword fell from his hand. Rikiar chopped into the back of Unferth’s thighs. Ballista thrust. Rings of mail cracking, steel rasping through flesh and bone.
Ballista withdrew Battle-Sun, pushed with his damaged left hand. Unferth took two faltering steps and fell on his back. Ballista, his boot on the bloodied chest of his enemy, the tip of his blade at his throat, reached down and ripped off the mask.
‘You have my luck in the palm of your hand.’ Unferth’s voice was steady.
‘Yes,’ Ballista said, and thrust down.
Ballista held the silver mask high. ‘Unferth is dead.’
The clamour of battle died as men took up the shout. ‘Unferth is dead! Unferth is dead!’
There were six or seven defenders left. They pulled away into a huddle. Backs to the burning hall, they tossed their weapons to the ground. Castricius and the others faced them in a semicircle.
In death, Unferth’s face was unremarkable. Perhaps fifty years old, swarthy skin, long black hair shot with grey.
‘A southerner,’ Maximus said.
‘Where his name tell he from?’ Tarchon asked.
‘It tells nothing,’ Ballista said. ‘It means unrest. His son called himself Widsith.’
‘Stranger,’ Rikiar said.
Maximus looked sharply at Ballista. ‘Do you know it is him?’
‘No.’
They all studied the dead man. The firelight moved over his face.
‘Then you know what you must do,’ Maximus said.