by C. R. May
As if to confirm his conviction the wedge surged forward again, and as the advance carried him level with the foremost enemy he gripped the hilt of his sword a little tighter as Helgrim Smiter lunged outwards at his side. A gap opened up where his huskarl had been, and Erik grabbed at the chance to make a contribution of his own for the first time since he had stowed his war axe following the opening attack. Erik’s sword stabbed out as a spearman reeled beneath the ferocity of Helgrim’s charge, and the king had the satisfaction of feeling the blade burst through mail and leather as his foe crumpled to his knees. Helgrim was cutting a deadly swathe through the enemy, and Erik stepped up to widen the rift as his shipmates rushed forward in support. Across the breadth of the old fort Norwegian blades were driving all before them, and as the defenders tried desperately to retreat in good order, Erik felt the springiness underfoot replaced by the unyielding feel of stone as they gained the roadway. With the change came the realisation of just how far the Norwegian onslaught had pushed back the foe in so short a space of time, and the king took a rearward pace to extract himself from the fighting as he sought to gauge the progress elsewhere. As he did so the men of his hird rushed forward to renew the pressure on the foe, and safe for the moment Erik threw a hopeful look to the West. He was not to be disappointed. The Orcadians were already across the road, the leading fighters now trading blows with Dyfnwal’s bodyguards as the men who had failed to halt their advance fled the field. The surviving enemy were now squeezed into the final few yards of the old fortification, and although the remains of twin gateways in the southern bank still offered a means of escape to the beleaguered force, Erik looked on wolfishly as a breakout by a party of Orkneymen moved up to seal them off.
Erik switched his gaze to the East, his conviction hardening with every passing moment that the men who only hours before had burned in and mutilated some of his closest friends were about to pay for the act with their lives. Ragnfrod’s advance had ground to a halt now that the enemy were pinned back into the angle of the fort, but on the roadway beyond a flash of colour drew his attention and the king’s confidence took a knock as he saw the first signs of movement through the eastern gateway. Erik’s eyes narrowed in suspicion as mounted warriors swept by, and his head shot across to the top of the rampart as he searched for the lookout his son had set to watch the road. Spearmen were in his place, their weapons wooding the air as they welcomed the newcomers to the fight, and Erik’s eyes now widened in alarm as he came to realise the significance of the sight. With every Norseman bar the horse guard heavily engaged it could only mean one thing, and the king felt a knot of fear tighten in his guts as he looked. Erik’s eyes flew back to the place where the Roman road cut the walls, and he spat a name as his worst fears were confirmed by a familiar face hardening from the ruck: ‘Maccus…’
Erik withdrew from the fighting as he waited for the newcomers to enter the fort, pushing his way through to the rear as the men of the Draki continued to throw themselves upon the enemy. Confused by the retreat, his bodyguards detached themselves from the front ranks and followed on as best they could, but for the moment at least the king was accompanied only by his standard bearer as the first of the riders swept into the interior. Riding beneath the flag of St Cuthbert Maccus the Easterner was near the head of the column, and Erik fixed the man with a stare as he attempted to divine his intentions. He barked a command to his banner man as he did so. ‘Sturla — lower my war flag for the moment. Let us see where they head…’
Maccus’s eyes swept the interior of the fort as horsemen continued to pour into the clearing, and as the riders began to fan out and haul the heads of their mounts to the south Erik turned and bellowed a command. ‘Rear ranks! Turnabout and form a skjald-borg!’ The first of his men were already turning as more Bernicians entered the confines of the fortress, and the thunder of hooves began to drown out the clash of steel on steel; but if the king’s command had caused them to exchange looks of disquiet their discipline held, and a flash of colour lit the scene as the boards clattered into place. The movement had caught Maccus’ eye, and Erik watched with interest as, convinced now that the man had come as an enemy, the Bernician’s head snapped around. With the defences now in place, Erik spoke again. ‘Sturla, raise the banner — let us see what he does.’
The effect was immediate, and Erik watched with a curious mixture of regret and satisfaction that he had been right to doubt their loyalty as the Bernician force wheeled about and drove directly for him. Despite his disappointment, Erik knew that the act of revealing his whereabouts while the enemy were still in line of march would be a success. Not only had he saved the unsuspecting rear ranks of all three swine heads from suffering a surprise attack from horsemen they had every right to regard as allies, but he knew that the attackers would arrive piecemeal before his own defences and suffer accordingly. Denied the opportunity to wheel and canter the length of the line, stabbing down on the heads and shoulders of the defenders as they went, the Bernicians would now be forced to come face to face with their intended victims. Unable to manoeuvre, and with the length of the horses’ head, neck and withers between them and the defenders, they would be leaning forward as they struck — opening up their bodies to the defenders’ spear thrusts and depriving their own counterstroke of much of its power.
The distance between the two forces shrank rapidly as the horses came on, and Erik called a final order as they prepared to fight again. ‘Keep your shields tight lads, and use your spears to hold them off. Frustrate the attack and they will be forced to retreat and dismount.’ The final words had barely escaped his lips when the latest opponents were upon them, and Erik hunkered into his shield as the head of a horse loomed over him. His spear stabbed out as he did so, the wickedly sharp point sliding easily into the flesh of the animal’s long neck, and as it screamed and shied away Erik was already dragging the blade clear to send the follow-up strike knifing into the soft tissue beneath the horse’s jaw. The blade powered through skin and flesh until the king felt it jar against the base of the horse’s skull, but the delay was momentary as bone shattered and the point punched through. Erik swished the blade back and forth as he made a mash of the animal’s brain, and as the horse’s eyes went wide and its legs began to buckle, the king withdrew the blade in a gush of gore-flecked blood. Unable to keep his balance as the horse writhed beneath him the enemy rider took a wild swing with his sword, but even before the king could bring his spear shaft across to deflect the blow, the point of Erik’s war standard had taken the man in the throat to send him flying backwards to the ground.
Along the entirety of its length the shield wall was holding firm as the experience of the Norwegians told, and the king looked on in satisfaction as Maccus realised that there would be no quick victories here and hauled at his reins to canter away. To the south the Orkney attack had ground to a halt, no doubt Erik knew, in a mixture of horror and confusion as they saw the cross of St Cuthbert and realised they had been betrayed. He turned aside to snap an order as the men of Strathclyde, trapped and in desperate straits only moments before, filled the bowl of the fort with the heartfelt cries of the saved. ‘Sturla — make the signal to retreat to the watchtower.’
Three short notes on the war horn had heads turning his way, and within moments the sigil war banner had described a series of circuits in the air before lowering to point out their destination. As the disparate parts of his army began to move, Erik looked again at the gate through which the army of Bernicia had ridden a short while before and his expression became a snarl. It was, he grudgingly admitted, the perfect place to snare an army. Isolated on the crest of a long ridge behind high ramparts it was impossible to see in any direction once engaged, added to which the fortress itself had been built with almost a dozen points of entrance, any one of which could be used to outflank a smaller force at any time. But if the look had raised his hackles it had at least confirmed that there were no more enemies entering through the old gate, and Erik tallied the numbers
as the men began to march. With the Bernicians still in the act of dismounting it was difficult to judge, but it looked as though the Easterner had led a further two hundred men to the fight, and Erik congratulated himself on suppressing his initial thought to launch an attack on the newcomers before they could settle. A quick look across to the buoyant men from Strathclyde, now gingerly edging forward as the Orkneymen retreated before them, confirmed that their numbers were much reduced by the fighting. But they could still bring fifty or sixty spears to the fight and he would have already lost men of his own. Despite the bravery and heroism of his army, they were still outnumbered at least two to one.
The western flank of the army were approaching the environs of the watchtower now, and Erik took a last look to remind himself of the layout before it disappeared from sight beneath booted feet. A defensive ditch ringed the whole, inside which the remains of an outer wall lay scattered about where it had been robbed out for stone over the centuries. Beyond that the signal tower stood on a raised plinth, rectangular in shape and perhaps shoulder high for the majority of its length, with the building itself rising thirty feet into the air above it. It was not only the perfect defensive position for a force his size, but would offer Erik the chance to see beyond the walls and far into the countryside in all directions for the first time since they had entered the fort, and he sent a prayer of thanks to Christ and Óðinn that they had seen fit to bless him with such a thing within easy reach. The realisation that the gods were still on his side raised his spirits as he marched, and with his enemies content to hang back until they could join forces, it was plain that the three elements of Erik’s army would reach the sanctuary of the watchtower with few if any losses.
The first of his crewmen had reached the new position now, and Erik watched as they crossed the ditch, scrambled through the rubble field, and began to make way for those following on. The king was soon up with them, his calf muscles tightening as he scaled the far side, and as Erik entered the fort-let he barked out an order. ‘This is our perimeter lads,’ he said. ‘Form up shoulder to shoulder and prepare to fight again.’ As his loyal hirdmen bent to the task, others manhandled the scattered blocks to form a rudimentary wall at the lip of the drop, and satisfied that all was in order Erik turned back as he waited for the others to arrive.
Ragnfrod’s division had had the furthest to travel to get to the new redoubt, but they had only taken part in one attack that day and were in better shape for it. The obvious belligerence had clearly dissuaded the Bernicians from launching a flanking attack despite their overwhelming numbers, and Erik looked on with pride as his son led a rearguard to protect the main body of men as they gained the ditch and scurried across. Sure that Ragnfrod’s men would soon be inside the redoubt, Erik switched his gaze to the south. King Dyfnwal’s raiding army had taken a beating and the Orcadians appeared to outnumber them for the first time that day, so it was no surprise that the foreigners appeared content to let the tough islanders withdraw without renewing the fight. The Torf-Einarsson brothers were already across the Roman road and approaching the outer ditch, and Erik allowed himself to relax a touch as he saw that the warriors in all three svinfylking had managed to extricate themselves from a potential disaster without losing another man.
With the central area of Hreyrr Camp now clear of Norwegians the Bernicians came forward to link up with the remnants of king Dyfnwal’s raiders, and Erik looked on in disgust as the two leaders gripped each other by the shoulders before sharing a warm embrace. Their underlings were already busy parcelling the army into three equal parts ready to launch an assault, and as the enemy began to curl around the ditch the last of the Orkneymen made it home. Now that the battle lines were drawn Erik turned to run an experienced eye over his own dispositions as the first chants filled the air, and was pleased to find that they were as he had expected to find them; set in their divisions, shields and spears to the fore and ready to renew the fight.
As the rival armies glared across the old ditch and the enemy leaders busied themselves celebrating a trap well sprung, Erik grasped the opportunity to speak with his leading men. Threading his way back through the packed ranks he was soon scrambling up the inner mound on which the watchtower itself had been built. A quick look told him that the enemy spearmen were still forming up, and reassured he called the men to him before ducking his head inside the structure of the building. The interior was the same as before of course, the day he had stood on this spot with Oswald Thane and the Englishman had described the fort before the ride to Haydon. The rubble and detritus of centuries filled the ground before him, all that remained from the original staircase and floors; but if the walls had lost their plaster and were little more than roughly hewn stone they suited his needs well, and he was already thinking of the best men to send aloft as he came back out into the light of day. With the ancient roof now a scattering of rotten beams and broken tile in the well of the building, there was room at the summit for several bowmen to ply their deadly trade as they kept a watch over the surrounding moorland, and Erik began to call the best men to him as he awaited his friends.
Erik raised his chin to peer above the grassy banks thrown up in an afternoon much like this a thousand years before, out across the wind driven wastes of Stainmore, the stony moor, as they came. Nestled high up on the saddleback the land dipped away to fore and aft, restricting the view; clouds of bluish-grey scurried across the sky as the fine drizzle began to thicken and whiten in the chill. Overhead the eagle had been joined by a handful of ravens as they awaited the feast to come, but as far as he could tell there appeared to be no more war bands in the immediate area, no sign of Cenwulf Thane and his host of spearmen, and he turned away with a wistful sigh.
Satisfied now that he would be forewarned when the lookouts reached their lofty perch, the king relaxed as friendly faces hove into view. Erik threw them all a grin as they reached him, and as they responded in kind the king felt the familiar thrill of being among trusted companions facing a hard fight. He reeled off their names, as much to hear them spoken aloud as to welcome them to his presence: ‘Arnkel and Erland Torf-Einarsson; Ragnfrod Eriksson…’
26
Today is full of Surprises
Erik motioned towards the doorway, lowering his voice as they came. ‘Place your friends as far in as possible lads,’ he said. ‘We may lose a few more men yet.’ Erik looked back. The forces ranged against them had taken a beating but then their leaders could afford the loss, and Erik let his eyes take in the men who ringed the defences below him as the wounded carried those less fortunate past him and into the well of the building. They were fighting well, and a quick count of the bodies slowly filling the ditch before them told the king that his men were killing the enemy at a rate of three or four to one. But the Norwegian success could very well lead to their undoing if no help arrived soon. Despite the difficulty negotiating a causeway made of the dead and dying, to do so would be far easier than facing down a barrage of Norse spears and axes rained down upon their heads from the lip of the defences above, and Thorstein confirmed Erik’s fears as he made an observation of his own. ‘One more attack like that and they will break through,’ he said. The huskarl turned his face to the king and his expression hardened into a frown. ‘The lads are tiring Erik — and they are thirsty…’
Erik nodded. Norsemen or not they had been on the road since sunup, leapt from the saddle to carry out two frontal assaults of their own and beaten back a handful since they had retreated to the old signal station. In their haste to overcome the enemy the Norwegians had left their water skins and other supplies festooning the saddles, and with the horse guards now bloody mounds on the grass and the horses themselves in the hands of the enemy the situation was grim.
Erik paused to think before offering a reply, but in truth he was as tired as anyone in the Camp. War was a young man’s game, and although he still considered himself a match for any man one on one, there was a reason that men approaching their seventh decade were
rarely seen in the front ranks after the opening moves in a battle. But Erik knew that Thorstein was right in what he had said, as he watched his opponents make a great show of emptying water skins and drinking horns and the men of Norway threw them covetous looks. Warriors on campaign or engaged in a standup fight can go days without a crumb, but deny them ale or fresh water for an hour or two and the situation can quickly become desperate. Hacking and slashing in the push of shields is thirsty work, and Erik and his leading men had shared looks of concern as the shouts of defiance coming from the Norwegian ranks had lessened with each attack. With throats and mouths as dry as a summer beck the men were silent as the enemy made a show of their abundance, sinking ale by the barrel load as they taunted their parched opponents. Erik knew that the time was fast approaching when he would have to abandon his original plan — to hold out until the expected arrival of Cenwulf and his levy men, if they were stand any chance of victory.
The wintry showers of earlier had retreated as they fought, and with it the commanding view from the ridge top had returned. A quick look out past the southern boundary of the camp, across the valley and the moorland beyond to the upland he knew was White Brow, showed where a westering sun was gilding grasses made slick by the earlier sleet.
