Penda worked with his long sword, battering shields and heads in a grim, remorseless rhythm, and Oswyn leant into the enemy wall, bracing himself against it as others around him did the killing. Oswyn knew we must not be pushed back too far or we would find ourselves retreating down the hill's far side with the Welsh taking the high ground. It would not last long then.
'Kill them!' Eni yelled. 'Send them back to Satan!' The little man fought like a demon, finding a talent for killing that he never knew he possessed. His sword arm worked deftly, the shorter blade finding its way under his shield to stab into his enemies before they even saw it.
'For Wessex!' shouted another man.
'For Ealdred!' called someone else as the fight settled into a terrible cadence. Blood flew in sheets, sliming the grass. Men grunted and screamed and pushed and died, and despite the fallen Welsh littering the ground we were still being forced backwards. Wessexmen whose names I had never known were down, broken and lost behind the advancing tide, their souls hastening to the afterlife.
'To the left! The left!' Egric shouted. 'They're getting round the back!' Ducking behind my shield I risked a glance to the side where Eafa was now fighting desperately with sword and shield, having slung his bow. I saw two Wessexmen cut down as the Welsh forced the left wing to fold back on itself. In moments they would be behind us and we would die.
'Raven! Can you hold?' Penda yelled, smashing his sword across a man's face. He thrust his shield forward into the space and the men around him roared and took a step forward. Dread filled me for I knew our shieldwall was growing ragged and gaps were appearing. Still, Penda's surge gave us heart and other Wessexmen struggled to push level with their friends. 'Can you hold?' Penda shouted again, for an instant fixing me with blood-crazed eyes. His mouth was a snarl.
I blinked through stinging sweat, and nodded. 'Push them back to their bitches!' I yelled, giving another great shove, and Penda left the shieldwall, dragging another man with him to hold our left. In a heartbeat he was killing men, a natural warrior, fast, strong and skilled, but also a wild thing, a dealer of death. But without Penda in the heart of the wall the Wessexmen were dispirited. We lost more ground as we were forced inexorably backwards. Blows rained down on me from left and right, my fine mail and helmet marking me as a worthy kill. A sword deflected off my helmet, striking my shoulder as a spear blade came under the shields to gouge my shin. I howled in pain and fury, pure rage surfacing again after having been anchored in the fight's rhythm.
We could do nothing for the Wessexmen who had fallen. They were dead men. All we could do was retreat in ragged order, keeping our shields locked and our heads down. We had been pushed back as far as Ealdorman Ealdred's leaping stag banner and I cursed as the green cloth was swallowed by the Welsh. Beside me, Egric heaved forward, stretching out an arm as though he believed the banner would fly to his hand.
'Leave it, Egric,' I growled, sinking my sword into a man's belly. I had long since lost my spear. Then hot blood sprayed my face as Egric's arm was severed, vanishing beneath trudging feet. The screaming Welshman then slammed his axe on to Egric's skull, and I heard it crunch above the din.
If you ask me now how to survive in a fight I will tell you it depends on your legs, on whether they can carry you far enough away from the carnage to enable you to screw your woman, raise fine children and live out your life in peace. But if you have to fight, if you love slaughter or if there is no choice, then I would say the best thing you can do is wear a helmet. Not a leather skullcap like the one that mixed with Egric's brains on that field long ago, but one of iron and steel.
The man at my right shoulder fell and my shield shuddered beneath a great blow that tore at the muscles in my left shoulder, shooting burning pain the length of my arm. It was all I could do to grip the shield as another blow rattled it, and another, and I dropped my sword and used two hands to hold the shield, which was splintering, all the while stepping backwards with the others. Týr Lord of Battle knows we were finished then. Our shieldwall was smashed and the real slaughter had begun. I put my shoulder against the shield and thrust the iron boss into my enemy, then screamed wildly and threw the shield at him, stooping to grab my sword. I would die with it in my hand so that the Valkyries might take me to Óðin's mead hall. But a Welshman slammed his war club into my face and I spun to the ground, bursts of white light blinding me.
'Get up, lad!' someone yelled. Through a blur I saw Penda standing above me, hacking wildly, taking down any man within reach. He had lost his helmet, his short hair stuck up in vicious spikes, and he was drenched in blood. 'On your feet, Raven! It's not over till I tell you! You hear me? You filthy bastard heathen son of a goat! Up you get.' The bloody grass around me was littered with Wessexmen, but others lived still, fighting with every searing breath, every screaming sinew – not for glory, not for Wessex, but because a man's life is all he has and he will not let another take it if he has the strength to fight. Penda hauled me to my feet. 'Fight, Norseman,' he snarled, 'or die here. Now. Fight, damn you!' Somehow, as though the All-Father, the Lord of Fury, had filled my lungs with his own breath, I was beside Penda, swinging my sword wildly, unable to see for blood and sweat and filth. 'That's it, lad!' Penda screamed. Unbelievably he was laughing. 'That's my boy! That's my blood-loving heathen son of thunder! Kill like the heathen bastard you are!' Blood hit my face. Screams filled my ears and the stink of shit filled my breath. Then another sound came to me and it was like a voice from another world, from the afterlife. It was a low sound, but clear and true, cutting beneath the battle's roar the way a spear bites a shin beneath the shield's rim.