Wulfhere fought as he was constructed. Wulfhere Skull-splitter of Dane-mark was not a thinker; he was animal, he was brute strength, he was nigh onto indefatigable and thus undefeatable.
But not, Cormac hoped, irresistible and undefeatable by a man who knew how he fought!
Though unusually tall, Cormac was a lean man whose musculature did not bulge, but flowed sinuously to knot here and there in stress. Like steel wire his muscles were, and yet, at the same time, fluid. Cormac’s strength was great, shocking, because he knew how to use it.
The Gael’s way was to hew and stab, aye, but not to seek to overwhelm. He pounced and struck, and was away and back again in seconds, like the gaunt wolf that was his namesake. There was no way his size could overwhelm a foeman, save in his reach; he fought viciously, and that overwhelmed. Nor could Cormac be bothered with what some called “civilized fighting.” Battling for one’s life could not, to him, be bounded about with rules. Thus with wooden sword and light buckler he had shocked his opponents in contests in Eirrin, and thus defeated them to become champion, but a month gone by.
He was a man who battled with sword or dagger or ax… and shield, and knee and foot and rush. Strike and sweep and thrust, smash and delicately stab and withdraw; all were within his unwritten book of combat. He was the consummate fighter, in whom a barbarian leapt to the fore when he faced a death-bringing antagonist. On more than one occasion Wulfhere had avowed that his Gaelic friend had no specific style at which to point.
And Cormac was intelligent.
If he had a rule, it was a simple one: learn swiftly from successes and from errors, so as never to make the same mistake twice. He had become, in this the year the Christians were calling four-hundred eighty-eight or ninety, or ninety-one or -two, the most terrible of warriors: an intellect-backed barbarian of great strength, shocking swiftness, and few scruples; in combat, he had none.
These attributes Cormac mac Art was now forced to pit against the brutish strength and attack of his friend and longtime fellow reaver. With awful silent ferocity, Wulfhere charged him.
High above the lapping dark sea, the wolf fought the bear.
Cormac waited until the last possible moment as that great bulk rushed upon him, like a thick grappling bear.
Then the Gael dodged to his left with a speed Wulfhere could not match-and as Cormac made that gliding sideward motion, his sword leaped out like a striking snake. The point just touched, with a tiny ting sound, Wulfhere’s coat of scalemail.
“Stop this, Wulfhere! Three killing strokes I’ve avoided-and could have slain ye, then. Stop it, man!”
Still the Dane said nothing. He lashed out with the edge of his shield at Cormac’s sword. A blur of silvery steel, that brand flicked away to spoil, with its flickering serpentine readiness and speed, the short ax-cut Wulfhere made. That tactic, too, Cormac knew.
“You are open at this instant, Wulfhere!”
But the Dane made no reply.
Instead that grim silent killing machine lashed back with the ax in a cut so much more vicious that Cormac dared not meet it with his buckler. With a skillful twist of his arm he used the targe to bash away the heavy steel blade. Impact and crashing clang were enormous. At the same time he sought to give Wulfhere a bash in the side with his sword, a stroke that would hurt and leave a bruise without cutting the scales of steel mail. For still Cormac mac Art could not bring himself to launch a killing attack on his friend.
That gentler stroke the giant with the bushy red beard avoided with a writhing movement. Around came his shield, and Cormac’s only just caught the blow. The two bucklers slammed together with a terrific crash and clanging thud, and Cormac was hurled backward.
Still the Dane came.
His friend flailed, backing precipitately inland along the sloping mesa of stone-until his foot came down on a fist-sized upcrop of rock.
Cormac felt himself falling back and knew that he was going to stretch his length. It was not instinct but self-control and the result of long experience that prevented him from windmilling his arms.
Before his buttocks struck unyielding ophitic rock, Cormac’s sword-arm was before him, and not only to protect elbow and grip. His wrist was amove, his swordblade weaving a silvery net of defense and steel menace before him. And then above him, for with a grunt and jingle of steel links and a jarring impact that clashed his teeth, he struck the rocky mesa. His eyes saw lightning-shot darkness as he sprawled full length on his back.
His head continued to buzz; his eyes he cleared.
Wulfhere came on, still in morbid silence that was more blood-chilling than the man’s usual battle-cries, curses, and fabulous threats. The battle-light was in his eyes, and Cormac knew horror. He knew, finally, that this was no joke, no game.
Wulfhere Hausakluifr meant to kill his best friend.
Already the Dane’s shield was in position as protective barrier against the fallen man’s sword. Wulfhere’s other arm was rising. The lowering sun flashed off the broad steel blade. In seconds it would descend to hurtle down in a totally irresistible chop that would drive the terrible blade through the body of his longtime piratic comrade until it rang off the rock beneath him.
Perhaps Cormac could roll and escape, then in a swift movement chop into the back of the man’s legs. But… cripple Wulfhere forever? No, better to slay him-if he could. Once that swift thought and decision had formed in his mind, it was too late to roll, and no sensible man would attempt to brace a shield against such a blow.
Cormac drove both feet straight up under the short skirt of the other man’s tunic and coat of scale mail.
Wulfhere’s eyes went spherical and bulged as he was jolted to a halt. His ax descended, but weakly and erratically. The Gael was able to turn that blow with his shield, though it split.
Wulfhere was busy trying very hard to breathe, and to see past the tears that filled his eyes, as though his crotch and his lachrymal glands were directly connected.
Cormac’s body catapulted upward; his sword crashed against the Dane’s helmet with a frightful ringing clang. The blade he was willing to sacrifice, if he could knock the man unconscious so as to hear what he had to say while bound and with dagger at his throat.
The blade did not break; Wulfhere remained conscious. Momentum, the weakness the other man’s kick had sent into his legs, and the blow to his helmeted head drove him to his knees. Cormac pounced away behind him. Wedge-shaped sword-point touched scales of steel where they lay between muscle-layered shoulder blades.
“Release the ax, Wulfhere. It’s no wish I have to lean on this sword-and remember that I could have chopped or stabbed ye already.”
Wulfhere swept back his right hand. Cormac had the barest instant in which to decide: drive with his blade into the big man’s back, or get his legs out of reach of the ax Wulfhere sent blindly around and back to shorten him.
Cormac did both. Pressure on his point did not send it through the Dane’s scalemail, but provided Cormac the leverage and pivot-point he needed to spring into the air. The ax missed his legs; his weight on his own sword drove Wulfhere forward and down.
The Gael alighted. He stepped back, unwinded and unscathed, and ran his tongue over his lips. He waited.
Wulfhere rolled over and glowered up at him.
“I had rather talk about whatever it be that’s driving ye to attack me thus, my friend,” Cormac said. “Twice I have had the opportunity to slay; twice I have not, for my last wish is to kill Wulfhere Skullsplitter! Now what means this maniacal attack on me your friend, man-and this silence that becomes ye not?”