The Swordswoman

by Malcolm Archibald

  'What if Aharn does not agree?'

  'Then I will go in with the Albans and leave the Fidach men behind,' Melcorka decided. 'Donald is my kin: the only kin I have, I think.'

  'The Albans have already lost a great many men,' Bradan said. 'They may not be fit to fight without Fidach support.'

  'If they do not fight,' Melcorka said, 'then I will fight alone.' She was well aware how melodramatic her statement sounded, yet she meant it.

  'It seems that will not be necessary,' Bradan said as they crested the ridge. 'Your intended seems to agree with your plan.'

  Aharn had been busy. The Fidach men were arrayed in formation, with the infantry in the centre, wounded men marching with the fit, spearmen arrayed beside archers and cavalry on the flanks.

  'Aharn!' Melcorka found him at the head of his men. 'The Norse have attacked Donald.'

  'Then we will march to their aid,' Aharn gave a small smile. 'After all, Donald is your kin, which also makes him my kin by marriage.'

  'We are not yet married,' Melcorka said.

  'We are married in all but name,' Aharn said, and kissed her. The resulting cheer from the army showed that their morale had not suffered after the recent battle.

  When Melcorka noticed that the Albans were in more confusion under their individual chiefs she mounted her horse and rode to the centre of the clans.

  'Will we let the men of Fidach show us up?'

  'It's Melcorka!' The cry came from man to man. 'We heard that you were a prisoner of the Islesmen!'

  'The Islesmen are with us,' Melcorka had to shout above the cheering. 'They are already fighting the Norse. Will we let them win the fight alone?' She raised her hands to quell the cheering. 'No! We will help our cousins of the Isles!'

  Mackintosh ambled up with his cat-skin cloak swinging and his claymore suspended across his back. 'I'll get them moving, Melcorka.' He raised his voice: 'come on Mackintoshes; we can't let the Camerons be faster than us.'

  'Camerons!' Melcorka yelled, 'you are fiercer than fierce in battle, but you have to get there first; Clan Chattan will get all the glory today!'

  With the Albans gathering under their chiefs, Douglas trotted up with his Border horsemen. 'I'll scout ahead,' he said.

  'I want you to harass the Norse flanks,' Melcorka thought it best not to mention his dallying with Lynette. 'Hit and run, prick them and withdraw, harry and hurt. That is what your men do best.' However she could not resist a small jibe. 'Remember you are there to fight, not fornicate.'

  Douglas laughed, spurred his horse and led his men away into the now fading dark.

  'Dawn is not far away,' Melcorka said. 'Come on, lads.'

  'Melcorka …' Bradan handed her a sword. 'You don't have Defender,' he reminded, 'so for the Lord's sake keep out of trouble. Lead and direct rather than get involved in hand to hand stuff. The men need to see you; you raise their spirits. If you are killed they will collapse.'

  Without Defender Melcorka knew she was no better a warrior than any other young woman of her age. She had to keep that fact hidden. Once the Norse were defeated she would think of what to do next.

  She would be Aharn's queen. The memory hit her again; the future was not her own. She had bartered it to gain an army to fight the Norse and free Alba. Well, there was work to do before she took his hand in marriage and settled down in Fidach.

  Rather than climb up and over the ridge, the combined Alba-Fidach army force-marched around the flanks. The wind carried the occasional clatter of battle from beyond the heather-tangle of the slope, encouraging them to greater speed. Douglas had led the Border Horse away so the Fidach cavalry led the van and guarded the western flanks, with the Camerons threading through the scrubby woodland of the ridge to protect the eastern flank. At the rear of the army a detachment of Fidach cavalry guarded the wagons that carried arrows for the archers, spare spears, some medical supplies and food. The three closed wagons were also there, rumbling alongside the rest.

  Douglas splashed across the Tummel, sweating and with blood dribbling down the shaft of his lance. He reined up in front of Melcorka. 'The Norse had some scouts out in front' he said grimly. 'They don't have any now.'

  'Good man, Douglas,' Aharn approved. 'If your men clear the path for us, we'll get to the Norse all the quicker.'

  'Keep the speed up!' Melcorka exhorted the Albans. She looked at her men in the increasing light. Veterans now, they moved in near silence, not wasting breath that they would need later. The rustle of leines and rattle of weapons dominated the army.

  There were a scattering of bodies on the ground, Norsemen punctured by Border lances, and a couple of Borderers among them. The combined army marched on, some looking at the casualties, most ignoring the signs of battle.

  'Round this final spur,' Douglas said.

  Dawn rose blood-red in the east as Melcorka led the Albans around the edge of the ridge and the battle-site unfolded before them. The combined army was on the lower slopes of the ridge, about two hundred feet above the field. They paused involuntarily to see how the battle was unfolding.

  The initial Norse surprise attack had driven deep into the camp of the Islesmen. After that the Islesmen had rallied and their heavy gallowglass met the Norse in a deadly embrace, with the sounds of battle rising with the sun. With more time to organise, the Norse had formed a shield wall, behind which their axemen retired when they grew weary.

  'There they are,' Aharn said. He took a deep breath. 'They must have emptied every village and valley in Northland to gather so many warriors. Even with our combined armies and the Islesmen, they still outnumber us.'

  He looked over his army, with the Fidach infantry standing in disciplined ranks, waiting for the order to advance, the cavalry on the flanks checking their weapons and the massed Alban infantry seething with desire to charge. In front, the Border horsemen flicked back and forward, taunting the flanks of the Norse, daring them to advance and engaging any who left their formation. Quarter of a mile in the rear, the wagons trundled on behind their screen of cavalry.

  Aharn glanced at Melcorka. 'You don't have your magic sword,' he reminded. 'Keep out of the fighting.'

  'This battle is about Alba and Fidach,' she said. 'Not about me.'

  Aharn nodded and raised his hand. 'God help us all.' He sat tall in the saddle and shouted to his men. 'Keep formation! Advance!'

  They moved forward slowly, step by firm step, with the sound of their advance like sombre beats of a drum, steady, remorseless, somehow inhuman, as if the army was composed of a single entity intending destruction rather than a multitude of individual men each with his own life, hopes, dreams and fears. Melcorka touched the hilt of her borrowed sword and felt sick. Without Defender she had nothing to offer this fight, nothing to add to this process of mutual destruction except the blood sacrifice of her life. She was the last of the Cenel Bearnas and before this day was done she would in all likelihood be a crumpled corpse lying on the ground, having achieved nothing except to encourage the mass slaughter of men in a doomed cause. Sound the war horn, chant the slogan, all soldiers were mere sacrifices to the dark gods of death; march on in gaudy colours and shining steel, march on to the inevitable crucible of destruction.

  Melcorka surveyed her options; live or die, fight or flee, she had created this day; she was the root cause of this battle.

  She had no choice but to move forward, propelled by the mass she had gathered together. It was her will that had created this army, and all the death and horror, all the agony and mutilation of this day was her responsibility. She had no right to survive when many braver and more worthy men would die under the steel-tongued swords of their enemies in this futile escapade to see which arrogant man would persuade himself that he ruled.

  Let the games begin: let the arrows fly to penetrate cringing flesh, let the warriors boast of deeds done and deeds yet to do. She was part of this most pointless of man's endeavours; a tiny, insignificant being among a host of other fools hell-bound on pain and butchery.
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br />   It was said that only a warrior knew how dreadful war really was. Well, she was a warrior and had seen the monstrosity of the battlefield and the terrible suffering of women and children left to the mercy of soldiers trained for war and allowed free reign over the defenceless.

  Again Melcorka touched the hilt of her borrowed sword, the weapon with which she had no skill, the weapon with which she was expected to fight a larger army of the fierce warriors of Northland, men bigger, stronger and more skilled than twenty island girls such as her. Play the game, warrior-woman, play the champion, pretend confidence in the teeth of the enemy; die with a smile on your face and encouragement in your mouth.

  Lost in her own dark thoughts, Melcorka had not realised how quickly they were approaching the enemy. Now she jolted back to reality to see the Norse formed up in front of her, a dense mass of men that stretched as far as she could see.

  The Norse had long seen them coming and half the army had turned to face them, organising with the skill of the expert warriors they were. Melcorka heard the harsh order from the Norse. 'Shields!' and the shield wall immediately formed. It was like a tortoise, a barrier of interlocking shields with the rising sun glinting on the iron shield-bosses and a thousand different designs gaily painted to alleviate the reality behind the façade. There were reds and golds, greens and blues, shields painted in contrasting stripes, shields depicting snakes or dragons or images of their barbaric northern gods.

  'Spears!'

  The order came from the Norse and a thousand spear points flicked from behind the shields, sharp tipped tongues licking outward to deter any attack.

  'Arrows!'

  And the arrow flights began, sheeting through the cool air of the morning to land among the combined Alban-Fidach army. Men fell in ones and twos and groups, pierced through the head, the upper body, the legs or the torso. Some screamed, others grunted or dropped in silence as the remorseless hail continued, so the whistle of descending arrows was a backdrop to all that happened.

  'It's like Lodainn Plain again,' a clan Chattan veteran said.

  Melcorka glanced behind her. The Albans were holding their circular targes above their heads, with some already resembling hedgehogs, so many arrows had landed. Some, the weaker, were wavering, looking behind them for routes of retreat. Others were angry, glowering at Melcorka, vocal in their demands to be unleashed; urging her to order them to the charge, the roaring, mighty torrent of sword and axe and spear and fury that could sweep all before it – or break on the shield wall and fall back in baffled frustration.

  To her right, Aharn had his men of Fidach in order. They waited in disciplined ranks holding their shields above their heads against the Norse arrows, patiently awaiting Aharn's orders. Melcorka noted the Norse heads hanging from the saddles of many of the cavalry and wondered if there would be more before this day closed, or if the Norse would be praising Odin across the bodies of Fidach dead.

  Aharn trotted over to her. 'Are you ready, Melcorka?'

  She nodded, took a deep breath and nodded again. 'I think so.'

  'Thinking does nothing,' Aharn's curtness betrayed his own anxiety. 'You must be certain, or at least look certain. Men don't follow doubters.'

  Melcorka forced a grin that stretched across her face like the death-mask of a corpse. 'I am certain that I am unsure.' Once again she touched the hilt of her sword. 'I would feel better if I had Defender.'

  'And I would feel better if you were more like the Melcorka I know,' Aharn snapped. 'For the love of God pull yourself together. This is no time to show weakness!'

  Melcorka frowned. She opened her mouth to retaliate, decided that the last thing she needed was an argument with Ahern before going into battle, and produced another false grin instead. 'Let's get into these people,' she said.

  'That's better,' Aharn approved. 'Now, we'll give the lads something to cheer before they fight.' Ignoring a flight of arrows that hissed down only a few paces in front of them, he pulled his horse within touching distance, leaned closer and kissed her full on the lips, holding her in a tight embrace until the combined army cheered lustily.

  'What will the Norse think of that?' Melcorka gasped when they eventually separated. 'The commanders of the Fidach-Alban army kissing each other?'

  Aharn laughed. 'They will probably be intensely jealous. I hope Bjorn gives some big berserk ruffian his tongue- although they would both probably enjoy it if he did!'

  'You're shocking!' Melcorka said, and meant it.

  'Get used to it,' Aharn gave her a last peck on the cheek and pulled his horse away. He raised his hand, moved it aside as a Norse arrow whistled past, and turned his back on the enemy to face his men.

  'Fidaaach!”' He roared as he rode slowly along the front of his army. 'We are Fidaaaach!'

  The men cheered and took up the chant, 'Fidach! Fidach! Fidach!'

  Aharn stopped, drew his sword and lifted it high. 'Archers! You can see your target. Loose!'

  The Fidach archers needed no further encouragement. Arranged in five lines, the odd lines took a pace forward to allow room to the men behind, bent their bows and unleashed a volley that rose slowly, hovered for a second at the apex of their flight, and plunged down in a dark descent of barbed, arm-long arrows that were capable of penetrating right through a raised shield or piercing a man from side to side.

  'Archers and slingers!' Melcorka yelled, hearing her voice high pitched. 'Fire!'

  The Alban archers and sling-shot men had been waiting their opportunity to fire back and now they unleashed their reply to the galling arrows of the Norse. Their bows were shorter than those of Fidach, and rather than aim high to drop the arrows on the heads of the Norse, they fired low, aiming at those legs and lower bodies exposed when the Norse raised their shields.

  The sling-shot men had less range so ran forward, unleashed their fist-sized projectiles like hail, withdrew to reload and ran forward again so the Norse had to keep their shields constantly mobile against the three way assault.

  Douglas reined up. 'My lads are underused.'

  'No they are not,' Melcorka said. 'I need you to patrol the fringes of the Norse army, look for any stragglers or any breakaway groups, any scouts or any Norse attempt to attack us. Keep me informed and keep them on their toes.' She stopped and put a hand on his arm. 'Oh, and keep the sling-shot men covered as well, Douglas. I'm sure some of the Norse will break ranks and attack when the slingers get too close.'

  Douglas nodded wheeled his horse around and cantered away.

  Long minutes passed as the arrows whistled in both directions, with casualties both among the Norse and in the combined army. Melcorka watched her men, judging their mood and wishing that she still had Defender.

  'My lord!' the runner had come from the Islesmen. 'And my lady,' he spoke to Aharn and Melcorka. 'Donald has sent me in person to ask if you intended to attack soon.' The messenger's hair was matted with blood and his chest heaved with exertion.

  'You may return to Donald,' Aharn said, 'and inform him that we will attack within five minutes.' He looked over to Melcorka. 'Are your Albans ready?'

  'They are panting to get at the Norse,' Melcorka told him.

  'Make that three minutes,' Aharn told the messenger. He lifted his hand. 'Sound the prepare,' he said and roared across the field. 'Get ready for battle!'

  There was a sudden movement among the Picts as they looked to the wagons. Men ran to and fro with bundles for the captains and commanders, while others worked with hammers and nails, straps and pins, creating something that Melcorka could not see.

  Some of the captains donned bronze face masks or helmets adorned with tall horns, sported tall, oval-headed shields adorned with spiral patterns around a central motif of a standing bull, and stood, waiting, at the head of their men. Another order from Aharn saw the great bull of Fidach lifted aloft on a splendid banner, and then the tall bronze carnyx war horns lifted into the air, with their bull's heads glaring toward the shield-ring of the Norse.

  At a
signal from Aharn, the carnyx men blew into the mouth pieces of their instruments. The sound that came out was nothing like Melcorka had heard before; the brazen bellowing of bulls mingled with the clacking of a hundred voices as the loose bronze tongues within the horns rattled and clattered together in synchronised disharmony.

  'Bring me Loarn!' Aharn bellowed. He watched as his elder brother was dragged, struggling and with his hands tied behind him, from one of the wagons.

  'Cut his bonds,' Aharn ordered, 'And give him a spear and shield.'

  'I am no warrior,' Loarn looked close to tears, 'this is murder.'

  'It is an honourable death,' Aharn told him. 'Sennachies will tell of the way you bravely led Fidach into battle against the pagan hordes.'

  'You can't do this to me. I am a prince of Fidach,' Loarn took a despairing lunge at Aharn with his spear.

  'And I am the heir,' Aharn avoided the spear with ease, spun Loarn round by his shoulder and pushed him toward the Norse. 'Now go and die a hero, brother dear!'

  'Melcorka!' Douglas reined up again. 'I see the Fidach men have their banner aloft!'

  'They have,' Melcorka agreed. Damn it, she thought, even although I know exactly what manner of man this is, I still find him dashing and handsome. She gave her broadest smile. 'We are about to advance. I am glad you are with us, Douglas!'

  'Oh, we are only here for the loot,' Douglas gave what was probably the most honest answer he could. The blood on his face only made his grin more debonair. 'And as that won't be much unless we win, I think you might like this.' Reaching inside his quilted jacket, he produced a wad of blue and yellow silk. 'I was using it as extra defence against arrows, but you have a better use for it.' He handed it over, leaned closer and stole a quick kiss.

  'Why is everyone kissing me today?' Melcorka asked.

  'Peek in a looking-glass and you will find out,' Douglas told her. 'That thing has been close to my body for days,' he whispered, 'so it is still warm.' He winked and straightened up in the saddle.

  Melcorka unfolded the silk. The Blue Boar of Alba menaced her from its background of yellow silk.