Sword Song (16 page)

Fifty of us went down the stairways and filled the gate. Twenty men faced into the city while the rest faced out toward Sigefrid. Inside the gate arch there was just room for eight men to stand abreast with their shields touching and so we made our twin shield walls under the shadows of the stone. Steapa commanded the twenty, while I stood in the front rank of the wall looking west.

I left the shield wall and walked a few paces toward the Fleot valley. The small river, fouled by the tanners’ pits upstream, ran dirty and sluggish toward the Temes. Beyond the river Sigefrid, Haesten, and Erik had at last turned their force around and what had been their rearmost ranks of northern warriors were now wading back across the shallow Fleot to thrust my little force aside.

I stood on their skyline. The cloud-veiled sun was behind me, but its pale light would be reflecting from the silver of my helmet and from the smoky sheen of Serpent-Breath’s blade. I had drawn her again, and now I stood with sword held out to my right and shield to my left. I stood above them, a lord in glory, a man in mail, a warrior
inviting warriors to fight, and I saw no friendly troops on the farther hill.

And if Æthelred had gone, I thought, then we would die.

I gripped Serpent-Breath’s hilt. I stared at Sigefrid’s men, then clashed Serpent-Breath’s blade against my shield. I beat her three times and the sound echoed from the walls behind me, and then I turned and went back to my small shield wall.

And, with a roar of anger and the howling of men who see victory, Sigefrid’s army came to kill us.

A poet should have written the tale of that fight.

That is what poets are for.

My present wife, who is a fool, pays poets to sing of Christ Jesus, who is her god, but her poets falter into embarrassed silence when I limp into the hall. They know scores of songs about their saints, and they sing melancholy chants about the day their god was nailed to the cross, but when I am present they sing the real poems, those poems that the clever priest told me had been written about other men whose names had been taken out so mine could be inserted.

They are poems about slaughter, poems about warriors, real poems.

Warriors defend the home, they defend children, they defend women, they defend the harvest, and they kill the enemies who come to steal those things. Without warriors the land would be a waste place, desolate and full of laments. Yet a warrior’s real reward is not the silver and gold he can wear on his arms, but his reputation, and that is why there are poets. Poets tell the tales of the men who defend the land and kill a land’s enemies. That is what poets are for, yet there is no poem about the fight in Ludd’s Gate of Lundene.

There is a poem sung in what used to be Mercia that tells of Lord Æthelred’s capture of Lundene, and it is a fine poem, yet it does not mention my name, nor Steapa’s name, nor Pyrlig’s name, nor the names of the men who really fought that day. You would think, listening to that poem, that Æthelred came and those whom the poet calls “the heathen” just ran.

But it was not like that.

It was not like that at all.

I say that the Northmen came in a rush, and they did, but Sigefrid was no fool when it came to a fight. He could see how few of us blocked that gateway and he knew that if he could break my shield wall quickly then we would all die under that old Roman arch.

I had gone back to my troops. My shield overlapped the shields of the men to my left and right, and it was just as I set myself, ready for their charge, that I saw what Sigefrid planned.

His men had not just been staring at Ludd’s Gate, but had been reorganized so that eight warriors had been placed in the van of his attack. Four of them carried massive long spears that needed two hands to hold level. Those four had no shields, but next to each spearman was a massive warrior armed with shield and ax, and behind them were more men with shields, spears, and long-swords. I knew just what was about to happen. The four men would come at a run and hammer their spears into four of our shields. The weight of the spears and the power of the charge would drive four of us into the rank behind, and then the axmen would strike. They would not try to batter our shields into splinters, but would instead widen the gaps the four spearmen had made, hook and pull down the shields of our second rank, and so expose us to the long weapons of the men following the ax-warriors. Sigefrid had only one ambition, and that was to break our wall fast, and I had no doubt that the eight men were not only trained to break a shield wall quickly, but had done it before.

“Brace yourselves!” I shouted, though it was a pointless shout. My men knew what they had to do. They had to stand and die. That was what they had sworn in their oaths to me.

And I knew we would die unless Æthelred came. The power of Sigefrid’s attack would hammer into our shield wall and I had no spears long enough to counter the four that were coming. We could only try to stand fast, but we were outnumbered and the enemy’s confidence was plain. They were shouting insults, promising us death, and death was coming.

“Close the gate, lord?” Cerdic, standing beside me, suggested nervously.

“Too late,” I said.

And the attack came.

The four spearmen screamed as they ran at us. Their weapons were as big as oar shafts and had spearheads the size of short-swords. They held the spears low and I knew they aimed to strike the lower part of our shields to tip the upper rims forward so the axmen could hook more easily and thus strip our defense in an instant.

And I knew it would work because the men attacking us were Sigefrid’s breakers of shield walls. This was what they had trained to do, and had done, and the corpse-hall must have been full of their victims. They screamed their incoherent challenge as they ran at us. I could see their distorted faces. Eight men, big men, big-bearded and mail-coated, warriors to fear, and I braced my shield and crouched slightly, hoping a spear would strike the heavy metal boss in the shield’s center. “Push against us,” I called to my second rank.

I could see one of the spears was aimed at my shield. If it struck low enough then my shield would be tilted forward and the axman would strike down with his big blade. Death in a spring morning, and so I put my left leg against the shield, hoping that would stop the shield being driven inward, but I suspected the spear would shatter the limewood anyway and the blade would gouge into my groin. “Brace yourselves!” I shouted again.

And the spears came for us. I saw the spearman grimacing as he readied to hurl his weight against my shield. And that crash of metal on wood was just a heartbeat away when Pyrlig struck instead.

I did not know what happened at first. I was waiting for the spear’s blow and readying to parry an ax blow with Serpent-Breath, when something fell from the sky to slam into the attackers. The long spears dropped and their blades gouged the roadway just paces in front of me, and the eight men staggered, all cohesion and impetus gone. At first I thought two of Pyrlig’s men had jumped from the gate’s high rampart, but then I saw that the Welshman had hurled two corpses
from the bastion’s top. The bodies, both of big men, were still dressed in mail and their weight slammed onto the spear shafts, driving the weapons down and causing chaos in the enemy’s front rank. One moment they had been in line, threatening, and now they were stumbling on corpses.

I moved without thinking. Serpent-Breath hissed in a backswing and her blade crashed into an axman’s helmet and I sawed her back, seeing blood show through the broken metal. That axman went down as I slammed my shield’s heavy boss into a spearman’s face and felt his bones collapse.

“Shield wall!” I shouted, stepping back.

Finan had gone forward like me and had killed another spearman. The road was obstructed now by three corpses and at least one stunned man, and as I backed toward the gate’s arch, two more bodies were hurled from the bastion. The corpses thumped heavily on the roadway, bounced, then lay as extra stumbling blocks to Sigefrid’s advance, and it was then that I saw Sigefrid.

He was in the second rank, a baleful figure in his thick bear cloak. That fur alone could stop most sword blows, and beneath it he wore shining mail. He was roaring at his men to advance, but the sudden corpse fall had checked them. “Forward!” Sigefrid bellowed, and pushed his way into the front rank and came straight for me. He was staring at me and shouting, but what he shouted I do not remember.

Sigefrid’s attack had lost all its impetus. Instead of hitting us at a run, they closed on us at a walk and I remember thrusting my shield forward, and the crash as our two shields banged together, and the shock of Sigefrid’s weight, though he must have felt the same because neither of us was thrown off balance. He rammed a sword at me and I felt a thudding blow on my shield, and I did the same to him. I had sheathed Serpent-Breath. She was and is a lovely blade, but a long-sword is no use when the shield walls come close as lovers. I had drawn Wasp-Sting, my short-sword, and I felt with her blade for a gap between the enemy’s shields and drove her forward. She struck nothing.

Sigefrid heaved at me. We heaved back. A line of shields had crashed against another line, and behind them, on both sides, men pushed and swore, grunted and heaved. An ax came toward my head, swung by the man behind Sigefrid, but behind me Clapa had his shield raised and caught the blow, which was powerful enough to drive his shield down onto my helmet. For a moment I could see nothing, but I shook my head and my vision cleared. Another ax had hooked its blade over my shield’s top edge and the man was trying to pull my shield down, but it was crammed so tight against Sigefrid’s shield that it would not move. Sigefrid was cursing me, spitting into my face, and I was calling him the son of a goat-humping whore and stabbing at him with Wasp-Sting. She had found something solid behind the enemy wall and I gouged her, then shoved her hard forward and gouged the blade again, but what damage she did I do not know to this day.

The poets tell of those battles, but no poet I know was ever in the front rank of a shield wall. They boast of a warrior’s prowess and they record how many men he killed. Bright his blade flashed, they sing, and great was his spear’s slaughter, but it was never like that. Blades were not bright, but cramped. Men swore, pushed and sweated. Not many men died once the shields touched and the heaving began because there was not room enough to swing a blade. The real killing began when a shield wall broke, but ours held against that first attack. I saw little because my helmet had been shoved low over my eyes, but I remember Sigefrid’s open mouth, all rotten teeth and yellow spittle. He was cursing me, and I was cursing him, and my shield shuddered from blows and men were shouting. One was screaming. Then I heard another scream and Sigefrid suddenly stepped back. His whole line was moving away from us and for a moment I thought they were trying to tempt us out of the gate’s archway, but I stayed where I was. I dared not take my little shield wall out of the arch, for the great stone walls on either side protected my flanks. Then there was a third scream and at last I saw why Sigefrid’s men had faltered. Big blocks of stone were falling from the ramparts. Pyrlig was evidently not being
attacked and so his men were prising away lumps of masonry and dropping them on the enemy, and the man behind Sigefrid had been struck on the head and Sigefrid stumbled on him.

“Stay here!” I shouted at my men. They were tempted to go forward and take advantage of the enemy’s disarray, but that would mean leaving the gate’s safety. “Stay!” I bellowed angrily, and they stayed.

It was Sigefrid who retreated. He looked angry and puzzled. He had expected an easy victory, but instead he had lost men while we were unscathed. Cerdic’s face was covered in blood, but he shook his head when I asked if he had been badly wounded. Then from behind me I heard a roar of voices and my men, packed together in the archway, shuddered forward as an enemy struck from the streets. Steapa was there and I did not even bother to turn and see the fight because I knew Steapa would hold. I could also hear the clash of blades above me and knew that Pyrlig too was now fighting for his life.

Sigefrid saw Pyrlig’s men fighting and deduced he would be spared their shower of masonry and so he shouted at his men to ready themselves. “Kill the bastards!” he bellowed, “kill them! But take the big one alive. I want him.” He swept his sword to point at me and I remembered his blade’s name; Fear-Giver. “You’re mine!” he shouted at me, “and I still have to crucify a man! And you’re the man!” He laughed, sheathed Fear-Giver and took a long-handled war ax from one his followers. He offered me a malevolent grin, covered his body with his raven-decorated shield, and shouted at his men to advance. “Kill them all! All but the big bastard! Kill them!”

But this time, instead of pushing close to shove us through the gate like a stopper being forced through a bottle’s neck, he made his men pause at sword’s length and try to haul our shields down with their long-hafted war axes. And so the work became desperate.

An ax is a vicious weapon in a fight between shield walls. If it does not hook a shield down it can still break the boards into splinters. I felt Sigefrid’s blows crashing into the shield, saw the ax blade appear through a rent in the limewood, and all I could do was endure the assault. I dared not go forward because that would break our wall, and if
our whole wall stepped forward then the men on the flanks would be exposed and we would die.

A spear was jabbing at my ankles. A second ax crashed on the shield. All along our short line the blows were falling, the shields were breaking, and death was looming. I had no ax to swing, for I was never fond of it as a weapon, though I recognized how lethal it was. I kept Wasp-Sting in my hand, hoping Sigefrid would close the gap and I could slide the blade past his shield and deep into his big belly, but Sigefrid stayed an ax’s length away, and my shield was broken, and I knew a blow would soon crack my forearm into a useless mess of blood and shattered bone.

I risked one step forward. I made it suddenly so that Sigefrid’s next swing was wasted, though the ax shaft bruised my left shoulder. He had to drop his shield to swing the ax and I lunged Wasp-Sting across his body and the blade rammed into his right shoulder, but his expensive mail held. He recoiled. I sliced her at his face, but he rammed his shield into mine, driving me back, and an instant later his ax slammed into my shield again.