Blood Eye(98)

The Welsh seemed to shudder as one man and their shrieks pierced the air. Suddenly there was empty space around me. My head pounded, still crammed with white sparks when I blinked, and I turned towards the familiar sound, gulping deep breaths as the Welsh re-formed their shieldwall. The ragged mass of black discs shuffled backwards over mangled corpses and writhing wounded, and I turned, shutting my eyes to the miraculous sight before me, believing it would be gone when I opened them. But it was not gone. It grew clearer and more real as I filled my belly with foul breath. A red banner showing a black wolf's head fluttered in the building breeze. Around it were shining warriors in mail and helmets, hefting round, painted shields, spears, swords and axes. It was a host to chill the blood, and the Welsh must have thought the gods of war themselves had come down from Asgard to make their slaughter. But these were not gods. They were Norsemen. I let out a roar of pain and triumph and fell to my knees. For Sigurd had come.





The Norsemen came from the east, perhaps forty of them, their shields overlapping to form a wall of wood and iron comprising not millers and merchants, but trained killers. It was a deadly wave. And it was perfect. With the sun behind them they swept across the hill, intercepting the retreating Welsh, and though the Welsh vastly outnumbered them still, they were all but helpless and must have seen their own deaths in the newcomers' cold blue eyes.





'Friends of yours, Raven?' Penda asked in a dry, cracked voice as he hacked into a fallen man's neck to finish him. He tried to spit but his mouth was too dry.





'Óðin's wolves,' I said, trying to blink away the pain and staring at the slaughter being done down the hill. The greybeards and children come from Caer Dyffryn to watch us die were running back to the gate now.





'One Norseman within a stone's throw is enough for me, lad,' Penda said, watching the Norse shieldwall carve up the disorganized Welsh. 'Heathen swine know how to kill,' he acknowledged in a growl. 'So long as they don't turn on us. I'm tired as a whore's tits.'





Most of the Wessex fyrdsmen lay dead. Fat Eafa was dead. His white hands clutched the broken bow stave. Coenred's corpse lay close by, as did Alric's. Further down the slope more men of Wessex lay tangled with their enemies in death: Saba the miller, Eni, Huda, Ceolmund, Egric, and big Oswyn whom I had liked, but whose face was a bloody caved-in mess. In all, twenty-two of Ealdorman Ealdred's men had died. Of those that lived, five were experienced warriors and three were men of trades who stood stunned as though they had somehow clawed their way out of Hell back to the land of the living. Their eyes were vacant and their bodies trembled. Perhaps as many as fifty Welshmen littered the field, their bodies broken and their insides open to the sky and the flies, and the stink was awful. Those dead would soon be joined by their kinsmen who fought on against the Wolfpack below.





'Well, Raven?' Penda said, nodding towards the carnage. 'Do I have to drag you down there by your pretty hair?' He turned. 'Come on, lads, are we going to let the heathens finish what we started?' The Wessexmen, stunned and blood-soaked and exhausted, took up their gore-slick arms without a word and trudged after Penda.





I climbed to my feet, stooping to grip a battered, discarded shield. 'Penda!' I called, wiping blood from my face with the back of my trembling hand. 'Wait for me.'





CHAPTER EIGHTEEN




THOSE WELSHMEN WHO COULD SCRAMBLED TO SAFETY BEHIND Caer Dyffryn's timber walls, leaving their kinsmen to be torn apart by the Wolfpack and the remaining Wessexmen. It did not last long and most of the men I killed then died with my blade in their backs. A few arrows fell amongst us, shot from the fortress walls, but they were released in panic by inexperienced men and did little damage. When we had broken the Welshmen's hearts and torn the life from all but a few, Sigurd bellowed an order to retreat. We raised our shields to the fortress and backed away out of bow range, Norseman and Wessexman, heathen and Christian, side by side, brothers in slaughter.





'Freyja's tits, Raven!' Sigurd exclaimed, turning his back on the Welsh fortress and embracing me in a great bear hug. Behind him I saw Svein the Red, Bjorn, Bjarni and the rest, all grinning at me through blood-splattered faces. 'I might have known you would be starting a war somewhere!' He gestured towards Caer Dyffryn. 'What did those savages do to upset you, hey?'





Bjarni stepped up, thumped my aching shoulder, then turned to his brother. 'Someone should have taught the lad the difference between rich pickings and a dung heap.' The Norsemen laughed.





Bjorn removed his helmet, wiping its bloody crown on a tuft of grass. 'We watched for a while,' he said, gesturing to the high ground to the east, 'just to make sure we were coming in on the right side.'