Hereward 03 - End of Days, page 20
His eyes locked on Kraki’s in a moment of silent communication. Pulling himself upright, he turned and drew his blade. In one fluid motion, he thrust Brainbiter through the nearest guard. Blood gushed from the man’s chest and he crumpled to the boards.
The other guards jerked round. The English fell on them like wolves, hacking them down with axes. Hereward nodded, pleased. So swift was the attack, not a sound escaped the Normans’ lips. Blood ran along the lines of the timber and dripped through the cracks into the water below.
Guthrinc stepped to the edge and cupped his hands round his mouth. His keening gull-call sang into the mist. Crouching on the quay, their eyes darting all around, the English watched as dark smudges appeared in the haze. The boats swept in.
Once his army had gathered on the waterside, Hereward threw off his hood. Every man followed his lead. He looked across the grim, committed faces and then raised his arm to beckon to his men to follow him. In silence, they surged away from the quayside.
When they emerged from the mist that clung to the mere, Hereward looked along the vast causeway with its enormous rolling ramparts of peat. Six wooden towers soared up to the pale blue sky. Ballistae and catapults sat on mounds. He watched as the guards wrenched round to stare aghast at the English army. Their cries rose up, rippling back towards the enemy camp. He waved his hand towards the reed-beds and two men dashed off to follow the commands they had received earlier that morning.
Time was short.
Hereward whirled, thrusting his blade towards the sky. ‘We are the English,’ he yelled. ‘The Norman bastards have slaughtered our brothers and stolen our land. But we will not bow down. We will not be beaten. We have fire in our hearts, and today, by spear and axe and sword, we will bring about Judgement Day.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
‘STILL YOUR TONGUE. I am trying to save your life,’ Harald Redteeth growled as he hauled Acha along the track from the camp. ‘Though why Deda thinks it is worth saving, I cannot fathom.’ He ground to a halt and frowned as he listened. Dim cries rolled up from the jumble of huts along the causeway. He peered towards where the carpet of mist rolled across the wetlands, but could see nothing amiss.
Acha tried to wrench her wrist free from his grasp, but his fingers were like iron. ‘You lie,’ she spat. ‘Deda was already leading me away.’
‘Deda was walking towards his own death.’ The Viking glared at her. ‘I know his mind well enough to know he could never have slain you. And if he had set you free, the bastard king would have taken his head. Now he has good reason. You had a friend who struck him from behind, and then you escaped together.’
The woman narrowed her eyes, still unsure. ‘Why would you risk your own neck to aid him?’
The Viking snorted. She would never understand. But he could hear the words of his father echoing across the seasons and he knew the right path to take, as he always knew. ‘Keep up,’ he growled, dragging her on. ‘We cannot afford to be seen.’
Down the track they hurried, towards the settlement and the empty marshland beyond. More cries rang out, death-screams this time, and the clash of iron.
Cursing under his breath, Redteeth ground to a halt. Fighting. Would the English be so foolish as to risk an attack? He looked back towards the camp and heard a yell. The lookouts upon the walls had seen some threat.
‘What is wrong?’ Acha asked. She looked around with unease, no doubt worried that she would be recaptured when she was so close to escape.
Before the Viking could respond, he heard the sound of feet. Glancing back, he saw warriors streaming out of the camp towards him. With a snarl, he scooped the woman into his arms and ran among the huts. Stopping at the nearest workshop, he wrenched open the door. It was deserted. Prized woodworking tools were scattered across the ground. The owners had fled when they heard the sound of fighting, he guessed.
Nodding his approval, he thrust Acha inside. She sprawled across the straw. When she looked up, she bared her teeth and glared at him.
‘For your own good,’ he growled. ‘Do not step outside or you will be seen and taken back to the camp. Do you hear?’
After a moment, she gave a sullen nod.
‘I will fetch you when it is safe.’ He slammed the door and dragged a water trough in front of it for good measure. Battle-cries rang out all around. Norman soldiers raced along the track beside the causeway. Redteeth cursed once more at the bad timing, and ran to join the fight.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
SMOKE WHIPPED UP in the wind. Bright blades of flame flickered among the field of trembling reeds as the blaze caught hold. Amid a swirl of sparks, two English warriors clambered out of the dry beds and darted towards the jumble of ramshackle huts lining the causeway. Jerking open the door of the nearest, one hauled out a yelling woman and a young girl. The other dashed inside. Once he had kicked the embers in the hearth across the straw beds, the two men raced on to the next hut. The crowd swelled. Terror lit faces.
‘If you want to keep your lives, leave now. Return to your villages,’ Hereward bellowed. ‘All here will burn.’
The Mercian watched the panic begin as anguished folk scrambled to save their meagre possessions. They would hate him, for now. But all their lives would be better once those flames had consumed everything the Normans had planned. For a moment, he watched the choking clouds billow up and the orange glows start to shine through the open doors. He grinned, satisfied. Fire was the greatest weapon of all. Deadlier than Brainbiter, axe or spear, more destructive than the siege machines William the Bastard had amassed to crush the English. And with it he would cleanse this good, black earth of its foul infestation.
Above the din from the burning settlement, Hereward could hear clamour drawing near as the Norman reinforcements hurried down the track from Belsar’s Hill. They were as unprepared as he had hoped, pulling on their helms and hauberks as they came, stumbling and crashing into each other. Their commanders ran behind, yelling instructions to try to bring some order to the confusion. But the men saw they were racing towards not only an English attack but a growing inferno, and their ears were deaf to their leaders’ exhortations. Yet when the Mercian squinted through the smoke, the stream of enemy warriors seemed to be unending. They outnumbered the English ten to one.
‘We have a fight on our hands,’ Kraki yelled as he kicked a dismembered body down the ramparts.
‘We expected no less.’ Leaping to his side, Hereward raced along the causeway to where the king’s men were clambering up to defend their prize.
The Viking swung his axe with such force that the first man’s helm spun into the air, his head all but sheared from ear to ear. Hereward glanced at the Northman. No battle-lust glowed in his eyes, only grim determination. His thoughts were with Acha.
The Mercian opened up the next soldier’s throat. The Norman stumbled back into the men climbing behind him, clutching at his neck as blood gushed between his fingers. Hereward thrust down into the yawning mouth of a warrior yelling the Norman battle-cry, then rammed his foot into the chest of a third as he yanked his blade free.
At the foot of the causeway, the king’s reinforcements milled, bewildered. Behind them, the conflagration swept through the huts and workshops and across the reed-beds so that it seemed a sea of flame was about to engulf them all. Along the cause-way, shields slammed together in a wall of blues and reds and yellows, spears thrusting through the gaps at any Norman brave enough to attempt to attack. And on either flank, the English archers thumped shafts into the surging mass of soldiers. Men fell by the dozen, plunging under the feet of their brothers and stirring greater panic.
Sighard yelped with glee as the battle unfolded just as Hereward had told them. But beside him, Madulf only glowered. No smile would reach his lips until victory was assured, his brother knew. Hereward yelled out and the two men looked to him. He whirled his hand and they ran to their positions among the piles of timber assembled for the causeway construction.
Above the roar of the fire, a distant rumble echoed. Messengers had reached the Norman force sent out along the north road and they were returning to join the fray. On either side, Hereward saw the faces of his men harden. So few, they were, and their enemies so great in number, they seemed little more than straws about to be washed away by the spring floods.
He ran along the rear of the shield wall, punching the air as he urged his men to greater efforts. ‘Courage, brothers,’ he roared. ‘One Englishman is worth ten of the Norman bastards. When we stand shoulder to shoulder our spears can thwart any attack, no matter how great.’
At the far end of the causeway, a group of the king’s men had gained a foothold. Hereward glimpsed them hacking a path to one of the towers. As he tried to second-guess their tactics, Guthrinc ran up behind him and jabbed a finger. The Mercian followed the line of his arm to the summit of the tower, where the witch clawed her way from the top of a ladder on to the flat platform. ‘Is she mad?’ the tall man shouted above the din.
‘Aye, mad, and crazed with hatred for the English churchmen who drove her from her home.’
In front of him, one of his men fell back, his ankle hacked to the bone. Hereward thrust his way into the position, slotting his shield into the wall, and not a moment too soon. An axe crashed against the boss, jolting every bone in his body. Gritting his teeth, he hacked down into the soldier’s neck and kicked the body on top of the warriors beneath.
A cheer rang out along the English line. Disturbed by the sound, the Normans craned their necks round to see what had caused the jubilation. Hereward grinned; all was going as planned. The distant thunder grew louder still, and as the wall of smoke parted, he caught sight of Morcar and his army racing towards Belsar’s Hill. The enemy was in disarray. From the edge of the camp, the music of war swelled, the clash of iron upon shields, the screams of the dying and the battle-cries of the English. All around, his men’s faces flushed with fierce determination.
Behind him, another cry rang out. He glanced back to see Sighard and Madulf had set alight the causeway timbers. Some they had stoked around the foot of the nearest towers and the flames were already licking up the sides.
But that was the least of it, he saw. The two brothers had succeeded in the plan that had come to him when he had first spied the building of the causeway. The dry peat of the ramparts was on fire, the peat that ran under most of the fens in these parts.
His men had set the world itself alight. The Normans, and their hopes of victory, would be engulfed in the flames of an English-made hell.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
BY THE GATES, Deda jerked from his daze into a world gone mad. Black smoke swirled overhead, agleam with sparks. Cries of alarm echoed, and the din of battle hung over all. Pulling on their helms, warriors raced across the camp and out beyond the walls. The ground throbbed with the beat of hooves as five knights leaned across the necks of their horses and drove them on at a gallop from the castle ward.
Hauling himself to his feet, he tried to make sense of this madness. The last thing he recalled was a feeling of impending doom while he led Acha to the gates. Now he could see no sign of her.
Through the stream of soldiers, he caught sight of Rowena. Her head was bowed in deep reflection, or worry, and she seemed oblivious of the steeds thundering towards her.
He yelled a warning. Still she did not look up.
Within a moment she would be crushed beneath the horses’ hooves. As she stepped out on to the track, Deda hurled himself in front of the chargers. The deafening rumble enveloped him. He sensed the steeds a whisker away, could almost feel their hot breath upon him, and then he crashed against Rowena, pitching her out of the path of danger.
With a cry, she jolted from her dream and gaped at the disappearing knights. As she realized how close she had come to death, she fell into Deda’s arms in shock.
‘My thanks,’ she gasped.
Her head rested against his chest for only an instant. Then she recognized where she was and yanked herself back in embarrassment and discomfort. Running her fingers through her hair, she refused to meet his gaze.
‘You must take care,’ he began, silently cursing himself for his awkwardness.
‘I know.’ She kneaded her hands, a sign, he thought, of her self-loathing. He bowed and stepped away, not wanting to see her suffer any more.
Another horse thundered by, and when Deda looked up he saw that the rider was William de Warenne. The nobleman looked afraid for his life. At the gates, he urged his mount west, away from the camp, and the fens.
Fleeing, the knight thought, puzzled.
A moment later, the king stormed past with a face like thunder. Odo of Bayeux, the Butcher and four more of his closest advisers swirled in his wake.
Glancing back only once to see Rowena hurrying away, Deda ran after the monarch. Outside the gates, William looked out over the scenes of battle in horror. ‘How has it come to this?’ he roared.
‘We were unprepared,’ Taillebois said. ‘The English are cunning bastards.’
The monarch shook his fist in the air. ‘We had them by the balls! This should not be!’
Deda looked at the devastation the English had wrought already and saw that the king’s men were in danger of being crushed, as William himself must surely have recognized. Should they fight, and risk being torn apart, or run?
He searched the monarch’s face. Behind the fury, he thought he glimpsed the first flicker of doubt he had ever seen William display. The Bastard had underestimated the English, and he knew it.
‘My lord,’ the Butcher pressed. ‘What do you command?’
The king snarled. ‘I will have Hereward’s head if it cost me all the gold in England.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
THE FENLANDS WERE burning. Silhouetted against the wall of flames that seemed to soar up to the very heavens themselves, Hereward looked out across the destruction he had wrought. Reed-beds and willow woods, ash trees and sedge, the makeshift settlement and the causeway, even the very earth itself, all was ablaze. There was no sky, only a suffocating pall of smoke from horizon to horizon, swirling with vast constellations of golden sparks. Along the track to Belsar’s Hill the Norman army cowered, a river of iron grown slow and turgid amid the conflagration. The king’s men milled about in terror, not knowing which way to turn. The English archers rained arrows down upon them. The roaring of the inferno drowned out the screams.
On the hilltop, the camp shimmered in the heat haze. As Hereward squinted, trying to see William the Bastard’s standard flying above the castle, he shuddered. A troubling notion gripped him that he had lived through this moment many times before. In truth, he realized, he had been dreaming it all his life. Here was his destiny: a burning world and he the devil that oversaw it.
‘We have the bastards,’ Kraki yelled beside him. His face was flushed and sweat streamed down his brow. He flashed a questioning glance.
‘We will find her and bring her home,’ Hereward replied, clapping a hand on the Viking’s shoulder. He spun round and thrust his sword into the air. With a roar, he slashed his sword towards the enemy. His warriors answered him with one voice, their thunderous cry rolling out as they threw themselves down the ramparts. Spears rammed into the churning soldiers, ripping through chests and necks and faces. The shield wall held firm. Back the Normans were driven, and further back still, until those at the rear of the enemy ranks were plunged into the fire sweeping through the causeway settlement. Some ran, pillars of flame setting alight their brothers. Most were consumed in moments in the furnace heat.
The Mercian almost felt pity for the hated enemy. They fought battles the way they made their ledgers and raised their taxes, line by ordered line, a relentless procession that crushed all before it. They were not ready for this madness of the English wild men.
Hereward dashed along the burning causeway to find a better vantage point. Once the billowing smoke had cleared, he could see that Morcar’s seasoned warriors were carving through the king’s men near the camp.
The Normans were being routed. The causeway was crumbling. Victory was near.
But not yet assured. A shriek rang out across the din of battle. Hereward craned his neck up and saw the witch poised at the top of the nearest tower. Her skirts were raised and she was showing her arse to the English warriors. When her contempt had been seen by all, she spun round and threw her arms towards the heavens. In a voice that was near a scream, she intoned the words of her spell. The Mercian did not recognize the language, but he saw the effect it had upon his men. As they fought, they twisted their heads up towards the witch as if they expected to be struck by a lightning bolt or turned to salt. Fear was sapping the passion from them, he could see. Their attack slowed. The shield wall buckled here and there. Spears danced off mail instead of tearing flesh.
And as the English courage ebbed, flashes of determination lit the faces of the Normans as they redoubled their efforts. Swords and axes crashed against the English shields, at first holding the advance, then driving it back. Soon the greater numbers of the Normans would prevail.
Wrestling with his conscience, once more he looked up at the witch yelping her spells. It mattered not whether the Devil answered her calls as long as his men and the Normans believed it would be so. Sickened, he glanced around until he saw Guthrinc. Beckoning the tall man over, he pushed aside his guilt and pointed at the witch. ‘Take your bow and end her days,’ he yelled.
Guthrinc nodded. Nocking a shaft, he took aim and fired. The arrow fell short. The witch shrieked louder at his failure. The Normans must have believed her protected by the Devil himself, for they crashed against the shield wall like a winter sea. The tall man remained as calm as if he were hunting grouse. He selected another arrow and braced himself.
