The Last King

by M J Porter

  That always pleases me.

  Before another blow can be made against me, I release my boots from the stirrups. With the other beast fractiously trying to bite Haden, my opponent is temporarily distracted. I move quickly to fling my right leg over the saddle, landing heavily on my feet, reaching for my shield as I whack Haden’s backside. He knows what it means and hastens to move out of the way with a clatter of his hooves.

  It’s all happened so quickly, my enemy is still trying to control his horse. I slice the blade down the animal’s back legs and step back, shield raised, ready to defend against the rearing animal.

  I nod, satisfied when from in front of my shield, I hear a thump and an ‘oof’ of air escaping the warrior. The horse’s wound is not deep, and it will heal with time. The rider though, well he’ll be dead by then.

  In three long strides, my weapon is touching the enemy’s neck, horror in his blue eyes. It gives me no delight to end our short battle by slicing open the exposed throat of the figure lying before me. One leg is caught behind his body, a slither of white bone protruding from the fall. I do him a favour. And I think he knows.

  With the wet sound of air leaving the dead man’s mouth in my ears, I turn to see how my men are doing. Edmund has his opponent’s horse tangled in the thorns. The animal’s eyes are wide with fright, as it seeks to kick its way free, only to force the rider to the floor.

  With both of them tangled, I leave Edmund to his task. Goda seems harder pressed, but I don’t interfere. He likes a good battle, and never appreciates an easy kill. Icel is just standing, watching, his hand on one hip, his horse milling around with Goda’s and mine.

  It seems all, apart from Edmund’s opponent, opted to fight on the level ground. It’s the wiser course of action, even for the two men who are dead, with the third not far behind.

  “What about the other fucker?” Icel points his seax back down the trackway we’ve just ridden down.

  “We’ll find him on the way back,” I shrug. One rouge warrior, on a horse he can’t control will be no match for my warriors, and I’m including Rudolf in that. I’m not worried about him.

  I walk to the horse I wounded, unsurprised to see suspicion in his eyes. I reach my hand out, speaking calmly, keen to grab the harness and direct him away from the two fights that continue.

  The horse has been ridden hard, froth foaming at its mouth, mixed with blood.

  “Shush, shush,” I soothe. I’m keen to claim the animal as mine, but also to see if the saddlebags slung over the saddle contain valuables.

  Icel watches Edmund, a faintly amused expression on his face. I feel safe enough to turn my back on the attack. It’ll be over soon enough.

  The animal calms at my actions, and quickly, I slip my hand over his nose, and then mouth, grimacing at the froth and sweat that combines.

  “Damn bastards,” I mutter under my breath. A rider should know how to care for a horse. The Raiders have little or no skill in tending the mounts they steal. If they’re to succeed, they must learn to honour their horse as they would their weapon.

  I know too well how long the Raiders spend cleaning and scouring their battle equipment. But not one of them would consider doing the same for their mount. I’m surprised the animals are not lame, or their teeth grown too long. Perhaps they’ve not long been under the control of the Raiders or maybe, until this journey, the animals were still under the care of men and women who knew how to feed them, check their hooves for stones and to wipe the sweat from their backs on such hot days.

  The animal is shivering beneath me, foam evident under the saddle, and keeping my hand on his coat, I work my way back to the saddlebags, taking the time to check the wound first.

  It’s bled freely, but the flow has stopped, and I can already see a layer forming over the wound. The animal will heal. With the right aid.

  There’s a saddlebag, and I feel it. But it seems to have nothing but provisions inside it from my cursory inspection.

  “About bloody time,” I turn to check on my men. Icel is berating Edmund, as Edmund tries to pull himself free from the few thorns embedded in his byrnie. His opponent still fights with the thorns, but they hold him, as blood sheets from a wound to the top of his leg. Not the cleanest of deaths, and not the nicest to endure, I’m sure. But dead all the same. When he realises.

  “Where are Sæbald and Gyrth?” I ask before the two can fall to arguing about the sloppiness of Edmund’s attack.

  “Fuck knows,” Edmund sounds aggrieved as he finally wrenches his left leg free with a ripping sound. “Fuck,” he mutters, looking down at the sizeable hole that’s formed in his sleeve.

  “I found those bastards first. The damn fools must have ridden into another force of Raiders.”

  “Bollocks,” it’s not what I want to hear. Firstly, I don’t want to lose two good men, and secondly, it means my decision to come this way has been a poor choice.

  “Well that was disappointing,” Goda has finally taken the killing blow, and I turn to watch him eye his enemy with interest. “You know,” he says, as though the dead man can still hear him. “If you’d gone for the right side, instead of the left, you wouldn’t be dead now.” I shake my head. Goda fights with great skill, and always appears to be three or four strokes in front of his enemy. He kills with a cool head.

  “Now,” Goda says. “Where’s the other shit?”

  He turns to gaze back the way the racing horse has gone, but there’s no sound to be heard, and the noises of the day have returned abruptly.

  “We have another four bloody horses,” Goda confirms, he’s bending, to retrieve whatever of value he finds from his foe. “Here, Edmund, do you want his tunic?”

  “If you think it’ll fit me,” Edmund replies breathlessly. The animal that was stuck in the thorns is flailing widely, it’s eyes wide with fear, and it’s flanks covered in splotches of dark fluid against the black of its coat. It might be quicker to kill the beast than extract it, but Edmund is hacking at the spindly brown thorns with his eating knife. I turn to help him fearing that darkness will fall before he can accomplish his task.

  “Sæbald and Gyrth had gone a long way. I’d been racing back for quite a while. To begin with, there were more men following me, but they must have given up long ago. I can’t hear them following, either.” I peer along the trackway, but I can’t hear anyone either, and the day is starting to draw in. Only a fool fights in the dark.

  “But why would Sæbald and Gyrth have gone so far? We couldn’t have travelled even this distance at the pace I set?”

  Edmund’s shoulders shrug at my question.

  “You asked me to find them. I tried to do that. I didn’t consider the why or anything.”

  “The Raiders saw a lone man and came to ask me some questions, all cocky like, blades showing, thinking I’d be an easy kill. I called them all bastards and raced away. I don’t think they liked it.”

  I grunt at that. I’m always amused that you can menace a man with a sharp blade, but you can really piss ‘em off by telling them their mother was a whore!

  “Where are they going?”

  “I didn’t take the time to ask.”

  With a final hacking movement through the thorns, the animal finally skips free, breathing as heavily as Edmund. All the thanks I get for my efforts are a stamp on my foot from the back hoof.

  “Grateful sod, aren’t you,” I move to make an ally of yet another horse, while Edmund fights his way free to the sound of more and more ripping.

  “I think you’ll need the trews as well,” Icel complains with aggravation, thrusting the tunic at him, and turning back to the lifeless body that’s half-exposed in the gathering gloom.

  “Do we bury ’em?” Goda asks.

  “No, we’ll just drag them to the side, pile some of those loose boulders over them. We’ve nothing to dig with, and their comrades might want them back.”

  Goda bends, and one-handed grasps the leg of his kill, hauling it to the side of the trackway. The
outcome of any battle always leaves far too visible signs. I’ve buried many men in my time. But the Raiders like to burn their dead first. They’re welcome to them when they find them.

  Edmund turns to gaze at the body of his kill. The thorns have their clutches well and truly embedded in the body. The killing wound flashes wetly.

  “Can’t I just leave him?” Edmund complains, but he’s already moving to extract the body. It’s far too damn grizzly to leave pegged out in such a way. It would have helped if the dead man had shut his eyes in death, but instead, they peer at us.

  I move to my kill, and drag him, two-handed to where Goda is already piling boulders over the enemy he killed. I notice the stark white feet with interest.

  “New boots?” I ask, eyebrows high.

  “Old boots where someone else has already worn out all the painful parts are my sort of boots,” Goda grumbles.

  “Anything else of value?” I’m curious as to how wealthy these men were. They have horses, they have weapons, but what else have they stolen from previous kills?

  “Look over there.” I peer to where Goda points and see a small pile of items taken from the dead man. There’s a silver arm ring, a leather thong with a small emblem on it, no doubt worn around his neck in life, and also a weapons belt. The man had seax and war axe. The weapons look well used. The handle of the axe gleams with the sheen of a man’s sweat that’s been worn into the handle over many, many previous attacks.

  “A warrior then?”

  “Well, in some meanings of the word, yes,” Goda comments, standing up to admire his work.

  I slide the helm from my kill and a mass of long hair cascades from beneath it. It might once have been blond, but now brown tendrils flicker through it. I gasp as well, noting the eyes and the more delicate face than I was expecting, the scars adding to the impression of a woman who’d fought many battles.

  “A woman?” Goda comments, his eyebrows furrowed in consternation. “That explains why you killed her so damn quick.”

  I tilt my head from side to side, considering.

  “A lighter build, I noticed, but not that she was a woman.” I ignore the rest of Goda’s words. She’s my enemy. I have no qualms about killing a woman. She tried to kill me, after all. Neither will I take the taunt in his voice. All of my kills are easy.

  “What now?” Edmund breathes heavily as he brings the dead man beside the woman.

  I’m still considering what value the body might hold for me. There’s no rings or jewellery, and I feel strangely reluctant to claim the two silver arm rings that rest just above her left elbow. Neither do I have much use for the clothes. But I reach and undo the clasp on the weapons belt. It’ll fit Rudolf.

  The clatter of a boulder abruptly obscuring her face rouses me from my thoughts, and I glance at Goda. He’s grinning at me, pleased with himself. Hastily, I place more and more boulders over the dead body. Woman or man, it little matters, but, and I consider this, it might make our rogue rider keen to seek some revenge if he still lives.

  “We go back to the camp. Tomorrow, we’ll find Sæbald and Gyrth. For now, we need to eat and, if we’re lucky, find that other rider, and end his life as well.”

  The three men don’t complain about leaving Sæbald and Gyrth’s fate unknown for the night. They know that hunting at night is a waste of time.

  Tomorrow, I vow, tomorrow I’ll find my missing men.

  Chapter 3

  Without further thought, I grip a handful of long grasses and work as much blood as possible loose from the blade. Only then do I return it to my weapons belt.

  I’m already imagining the excited questions from Rudolf and anticipating his responses when he hears I killed a woman Raider.

  It’s not a secret that the Raiders consist of both men and women. All the same, it’s always something of a surprise to kill one.

  The four horses, I’ve never been so rich in horse flesh before, are easily gathered together, despite the wounds two of them have. While Goda and Icel determine to ride before me, I hold back, with Edmund.

  Edmund still complains as he checks his body for scratch marks from the thorns. He’s changed neither his trews nor tunic and his exposed skin flashes in the afternoon sun.

  “I’ll wash them first,” he offers when I indicate his torn clothes. “I’ll not wear the stench as well as their clothes.” We lapse into silence. I’m busy thinking about Sæbald and Gyrth. Where have the fuckers gone?

  “Bit keen for another kill, aren’t they?” Edmund finally comments into the silence, watching as I do, how alert Goda and Icel are in front of us.

  “They’re welcome to whoever they happen to find. Damn fool. I wouldn’t trust a man who mounted a horse and forced it to ride fast without the skill to bring it under control. The horse is as much a weapon as the iron he rides with. I doubt he’d think much of someone who just jabbed around with a sword or spear.”

  Edmund remains silent. I know what plagues him. I’ll allow him to speak first.

  The silence between us stretches onwards, and I almost think we’ll make it back to the campsite without meeting the lost Raider or Edmund speaking.

  But no such luck.

  “It’s true then?” The words are filled with strain.

  “It appears to be. If there’s another force north of here.”

  “Damn that fucker,” fury turns the complaint taut. I can’t argue with Edmund. I feel the same.

  “We’re still going to Repton,” I state before he can argue with me. His hands on the harness tell me more about him than the new silence.

  Edmund wants to go to Repton. He wants to know the truth, but equally, he wants to fight. I can tell, from the way Edmund rubs one hand over the other, in an attempt to keep them firm on the harness. If he had his way, he’d be halfway to Repton already.

  “But we’ll kill everyone we encounter?”

  “Of course,” I’m surprised he asks the question.

  “And we’ll find Gyrth and Sæbald?”

  “If we can.”

  “And what of the horses and young lads?” This is a problem. “And what of the fact we’re missing over a quarter of our force. That’s including Pybba, who won’t be able to fight for weeks yet, whereas Ingwald, Oda and Eahric are hampered too.”

  “Um,” is all I offer. I know what the problems are. I’ve just not decided on how to solve them yet.

  Edmund sighs, not with frustration, but weariness. We’ve been fighting for many years. We’ve not yet come close to winning but losing has suddenly become a possibility it’s never been in the past.

  “I knew King Burgred was no damn good.”

  “I know you did. But it was Burgred's right,” this is far from a new argument, but repetition never bothers Edmund. For once, he decides not to press the point.

  Without sight of the lost rider, we round the bend and my camp is before me, a fire burning brightly as the sun sinks ever lower.

  It’s been a long day despite my decision to call an early camp.

  But even from a distance, I can see that my orderly camp is not quite as orderly as usual.

  “Why are there five men on guard duty?” Goda’s question is worthwhile.

  “Be wary,” I warn my three companions quietly, as we ride closer, hands reaching for weapons.

  Fierce eyes peer at me from beneath helms of the men guarding the camp close to the trackway. No unease, but resolve, evident in the stances of Eoppa, Ordheah, the injured Ingwald and Hereman. Hereman peers at his brother in much the same way that Edmund did to him the day before. There’s a pleasure in knowing he still lives, but also a realisation that the shit they do to each other, each and every waking moment isn’t yet at an end.

  “What you doing here?” I ask the question of Pybba. Behind him, Rudolf is too openly in attendance. My mouth furrows. We were supposed to be resting so that Pybba could recover his strength, Ingwald as well.

  “You’ve been gone a long time,” Hereman speaks into the tense silence, his v
oice rich with a complaint as he holds his brightly coloured shield. Again, I realise that Hereman has taken the initiative. What has happened to him to change him so much in such a short space of time?

  “Where are Gyrth and Sæbald?” I don’t answer, but sweep my eyes around the camp noticing all the small things that are out of place. Pybba is only the most visible of them, as is the new horse and the fresh mound of covered earth on the far side of the track.

  “Who killed him?” I demand to know, although I have my suspicions, and fury takes hold. I expressly delegated the task of keeping the camp safe to Oslac and Ordheah in my absence.

  Ordheah’s head sinks low, as though expecting the rage.

  “Pybba killed the Raider.” I don’t ask why the Raider was allowed to get beyond those on guard duty.

  “Why weren’t you resting?” I direct the complaint at Pybba, while Rudolf rushes to take Haden from me, the spare mount I’ve been leading, as well.

  “Someone needed to be awake,” Pybba spits angrily, the top of his head flushing with his fury, and I can see there’s been some unholy row in my absence. Why they can’t all follow simple instructions, I don’t know.

  “But he’s dead?” I direct my chin toward the mound of earth, away from the trackway, but not close to the brook either.

  “Stupid bastard tried to ride through the camp.”

  I’m starting to build an image in my mind of what’s happened while I’ve been gone. A fucking explanation is needed and quickly.

  “We fought another four. They’re dead. We don’t know where Sæbald and Gyrth are. We’ll find them tomorrow. Now, what is there to eat?”

  I stride through the tight knot of five men. The young lads are watching on keenly, bowls in their hands, spoons suspended halfway between the contents and their mouths. Whatever happened hasn’t disturbed them. Such confidence in the ability of my warriors to protect them might be misplaced.