Authors: Giles Kristian
'Come, Norseman,' Weohstan spat, planting his feet apart and hefting a round war shield, 'let us finish it.'
'You want to die now,' I asked him, 'or after we get Cynethryth back from those Welsh whoresons?'
He was already striding towards me, but stopped then. 'You mean to go after her?' he asked, and even in the darkness I could see suspicion and hate in his eyes.
'I mean to go after the book, Weohstan,' I said, lowering my shield slowly, 'but two swords have more chance than one. Your death can wait until we both have what we want.'
Weohstan lifted two spears, then thrust their points into the earth with a grunt. He stepped forward and gripped my arm, his mouth a grimace and his eyes dark beneath the helmet's rim. He looked a different man now he was armed for battle, and I knew then that he was a killer like me.
We slung our shields across our backs and took up our spears. Weohstan offered up a prayer to the White Christ and so I muttered my own to Óðin whose name means frenzy. Then we ran west across the heather-cloaked hills and though there was no way of knowing where the Welsh war band had taken their prize, we were free and on the move. And we had thoughts of vengeance to push us on.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
WE SLEPT FOR A SHORT TIME AMONGST THE HEATHER AND WOKE
when the first pink laced the eastern horizon. I felt empty, hungry and cold as I shook the morning dew from my gear, imagining the fear Cynethryth must be feeling. If she still lived.
'Look, Raven!' Weohstan called. I was taking a piss and I turned to see him pointing to the west where I made out the great earthen wall and palisade built by Offa, the last Mercian king, during his wars with the men of Powys and Dyfed. It was a huge bank and ditch and must have taken many years of labour. 'Not the wall, you blind bloody heathen, there, maybe a mile from the bank, do you see it?' I was shaking my head when I saw it, a grey smear against the brightening sky. 'The bastards are having their breakfast,' he added, the grimace twisting his handsome face.
I pulled up my breeches and touched the Óðin amulet at my throat.
'I could eat,' I said, slinging the shield across my back. We had no way of knowing how many men were down there, and the fact that they were not afraid to light a fire suggested they were confident enough. They would never expect two men to come after them and that was our advantage, for we were not just two men; we were warriors. And I had my god with me. And he was a god of war.
We took the low ground to prevent our silhouettes from standing out against the rising sun and soon found ourselves on the near side of the hill that hid the Welsh war band, and there we watched the smoke drift lazily eastwards on the breeze. It was warm. Sweat ran down our faces to drip from our beards as we crawled along the hill's summit to its far edge from where we saw the Welsh sitting round their fire. There were eight of them, their faces still covered in the mud that had made them invisible fiends the previous night. Cynethryth lay apart from the men, her legs and arms tied and her face turned away from us. Only the twitch of a leg told me that she was still alive.
'There are too many,' I whispered. 'We'll have to wait till dark. Surprise them.'
'No,' Weohstan said, gripping my wrist and nodding towards Offa's wall, 'by then they'll be across the ditch and we'll be up to our necks in Welsh bastards.' He stared into my eyes. 'We hit them now,' he said, his jaw clenched, and I knew he would go alone if he had to. 'Now,' he hissed, and I nodded because I knew he was right. If we were lucky, the Welsh would be stunned from losing so many men during the fight at the shepherd's hut, but soon they would turn to the English girl they had carried away and they would care nothing that she was young or that her face was bruised and dirty and her hair matted and tangled. Then Cynethryth would be better off to strike her head against a sharp rock. Sigurd and his Wolfpack were probably dead, making me the last of a broken fellowship. I had no home and nothing to lose. And the Welsh had Cynethryth.
I tightened the helmet strap beneath my chin and prayed that I would use well the skills I had learned. But mostly I prayed that the battle fury would take me and that that rage would make my enemies fear me. 'Kill well, Weohstan,' I said, grinning.
He nodded. 'Kill well, Raven,' he replied, his eyes full of violence. We got to our feet on the crest of the hill so that the sun hit our backs, casting long shadows down the slope before us. I turned my face to the sky and roared so that Óðin would hear me and guide my sword to help me kill.
The Welsh scrambled to their feet, grabbing their weapons and small shields as we ran down the slope yelling our battle cries. Weohstan sent a Welsh spear like a lightning bolt into a warrior's chest and to this day I have never seen such a throw, but I waited until I could not miss and sent my own light spear through a man's neck before he could raise his shield. Then I threw Glum's knife to land beside Cynethryth and rammed my shield into a Welshman's face, crushing it with the iron boss. I swung my spear in a wide arc, making two men jump back, and saw Weohstan plunge a Norse spear into a bare chest.
The bloodlust raged in me as I battered with my shield and jabbed with my spear, but something struck my helmet and a spear ripped into my back, scraping my shoulder blade. I yelled and spat in fury, twisting to swing the haft of my spear against an enemy's temple, dropping him. Blades battered me, some glancing off my brynja, others striking true. I heard Weohstan yelling madly too, then saw a Welsh war club strike his face. His legs buckled and Cynethryth screamed a wild cry like that of a hawk and plunged Glum's knife into the man standing over him. I threw my heavy spear and drew my sword as a warrior slammed his axe into my shield, then I swung the sword up into his chin, cleaving his face in two.
'Bastards! Whoresons and Devil's turds!' I screamed, wildly swinging my sword from side to side, spinning round seeking more enemies, hungry to send more wet crimson flying through the air. I struck flesh, stumbled, fell to one knee and clambered up again, then stamped on the body at my feet. Twice more I fell, before somewhere beneath the madness, amongst the bloodlust, I heard a shrill repeating sound that slowly took shape.
'Raven! It's over! It's over!'
I threw my shield into the gorse and turned to look at Cynethryth through eyes full of salty, stinging blood.
'Are you a death maiden?' I heard myself ask, trying to fight the shuddering gripping my body. My legs buckled, but I stood straight again. 'Am I to join Jarl Sigurd now?'
'Raven, it's me, Cynethryth,' she cried, tears streaming down her cheeks. 'Cynethryth.' Then she wrapped her arms around my waist and held me tight as though she could take the shivering pain from my body into her own. I realized I was not dead and that she was no Valkyrie. She was Cynethryth. Beautiful Cynethryth. And somehow we had won.
'Oh, no! God help us!' Cynethryth said. She pushed me away suddenly and ran to where Weohstan had fallen and there she fell on her knees. I turned to the west where the bracken-covered hills rolled like the swollen grey sea before a storm, and I saw men coming towards us. Though they were still far off, I saw they carried black shields.
'Is he breathing?' I called, stumbling over dead Welshmen to stand above Cynethryth. There was a gash across Weohstan's temple where the club had struck, and his mail was torn and bloodied, though I could not tell if the blood was his own. 'Does he breathe, Cynethryth?' I asked again, glancing up to see the Welsh coming fast like war hounds, and just then I would have preferred it if they had been English warriors laden with brynjas, helmets and iron-rimmed shields. Because then we would have more time.
'Can you carry him, Raven?' Cynethryth asked, but her green eyes betrayed that she knew I could not, and she ran her fingers through Weohstan's brown hair, clutching him desperately.
I shook my head. 'I'm finished. I can't fight them,' I said, wondering if this was the end the Norns of fate had woven into my life's thread. I had fought well and there would be no shame in it. Then fear stabbed me, for what would the Welsh do to Cynethryth after they had torn the breath from my belly? She looked down at Weohstan and kissed his forehead, letting his blood lace her lips, and I did not interrupt her despair, but instead whispered to Óðin that I would make one more kill before the end. But then Cynethryth stood, hefting a Norse shield which she slung across my back. She took up the leather sack containing the gospel book of Saint Jerome and grabbed a stout spear.
'Here,' she hissed, closing my hand round the spear's haft and throwing my other arm about her shoulder. 'Lean on me, you bloody heathen beast.' My strength was gone. I was wounded, I did not know how badly, and it was all I could do to stay on my feet as we clambered up the east hill, leaving Weohstan, dead or alive, to the Welsh. 'Faster, Raven!' Cynethryth barked, dragging me on as I planted the butt of the spear with every other step, grimacing against the pain. 'Move, you filthy son of a goat!' She pulled me on, whipping me with insults, rousing the last embers of my heart into flames of defiance, for we both knew that if we did not make it to the trees before the Welsh crested the last hill, they would catch us.
'Leave me,' I growled, falling to my knees. Dizziness blurred my vision and darkness was creeping in from the corners of my eyes. 'Go!'
'No, Raven!' she howled. 'I'll stay here! I'll stay and watch them kill you and then they'll rape me to death!'
I cursed, summoned the last dregs of will and dug in with the spear, offering my hand to Cynethryth to haul me on. 'Stubborn bitch,' I said.
We made the tree line without turning to see if our pursuers had crested the last hill, and scrambled into the forest like hunted wild animals.
'A little further, that's all.' Cynethryth drove me forward, picking me up when I fell, and when the forest became denser we crashed through the brittle lower branches of pines and birch, the sound of breaking wood and the blood gushing in my ears filling my dark world. Then I remember no more.
When I opened my eyes I thought I was blind. Slowly, they adjusted to the clinging darkness. The forest was oppressive and still, the screech of an owl or rustle of a badger the only signs of life around us. I was shivering. I tried to sit up, but a firm hand pushed me down.
'You're stronger than you look, Cynethryth,' I mumbled, then slipped into my own dark place once again.
'Drink, Raven,' a voice said some time later, and I felt the cold rim of a helmet against my lips. Water ran down my chin as I slurped. I had not realized how thirsty I was. 'I found a stream while you were sleeping.' Cynethryth's loose hair tickled my forehead.
'It's salty,' I said, licking my cracked lips and lying back again.
'I rinsed it out but the sweat's deep inside the leather,' she said quietly, carefully placing Glum's helmet in a cradle she had made from sticks. 'I hid your shield beneath some brambles.' Her voice sounded strange, as though the night ate her words as soon as they were spoken. The air smelled musty and damp and when I stretched out a leg, my foot hit solid wood. 'We're inside an oak, Raven,' Cynethryth said in a low voice. 'It must be very old.' I shifted, but a burning pain in my back held me rigid. 'Keep still or you'll open the wound again. I stitched you with this.' She held up a fine bone needle.
I touched it with my finger and winced. 'Not very sharp, is it?' I said.
Cynethryth shrugged. 'I used a thorn to pierce the skin. It's just as well you were asleep. I thought you were dead.' In the darkness I saw her nose crinkle. 'You smell dead.'
'What did you use to close the wound?' I asked with a shudder.
Her lip curled as she lifted the ragged hem of her tunic from which she had pulled a thread to sew up the slash, and I caught a glimpse of her torn underclothes. 'It could have been prettier, but I left my best linen in Mercia.'
'I am sorry, Cynethryth,' I said, taking her hand and squeezing it. A wave of pain flooded my back. 'I'm sorry for what we did.'
She pulled her hand away. 'You are heathens. You do what you do. You are like beasts, wild creatures with no fear of the Lord's judgement.' She pointed a finger at me. 'But you should fear it, Raven.' I thought I saw the same hatred in her eyes that had been in Weohstan's.