Sword of Kings (The Last Kingdom Series, Book 12)

by Bernard Cornwell

  It was a battle I was losing. The spike came nearer and nearer and he was stronger than me, but then, quite suddenly, his eyes went wide, he stopped snarling, his hand lost all its strength and the long nail fell, just missing my eye. He began to vomit blood, great gouts of blood that were black in the night, blood spurting with extraordinary force to blind me, blood warm on my face as the man choked and gurgled from the sudden slash in his gullet. At almost the same instant the second man let go of both my arm and of Serpent-Breath’s crosspiece.

  A woman shrieked like a demon in pain. I was standing, shouting as much from fear as relief. The barn stank of blood. The man who had tried to take Serpent-Breath was backing away, a spear threatening him. He had been wounded in the ribs, presumably by the spear, and I finished him by slicing Serpent-Breath back-handed and so opening his gullet. The big man who had started the fight was still gripping my leg, but feebly, and I stabbed down with my blood-soaked blade and pierced his arm, then, filled with rage, I rammed Serpent-Breath through his eye and deep into his skull.

  There was a moan, some gasps from the women and cries from the children, then silence.

  ‘Anyone wounded?’ Finan called.

  ‘Me,’ I said bitterly, ‘but I’ll live.’

  ‘Bastards,’ Finan spat.

  Ten of the oarsmen had been persuaded that their best chance lay in killing us and now all ten were either dead or dying in the blood-reeking barn. The rest were huddled against the far wall. Irenmund was one of them. ‘We didn’t know, lord—’ he began.

  ‘Quiet!’ I silenced him, then stooped and plucked the seax from the dead man’s hand. ‘How did he get this sword?’ I demanded of Irenmund.

  ‘I was sleeping, lord,’ he sounded terrified. ‘He must have stolen it, lord!’

  The big man had stolen the seax and then, slowly and quietly, he had undone the knots in one of the chains. He had loosened it link by link, working through the dark, until he reckoned he could move unhindered. Then he had attacked.

  It had been Benedetta who had shrieked like a demon in pain, not because she was hurt, but in astonishment as she had lunged the spear into the ribs of the man trying to take Serpent-Breath. She still held the weapon, her eyes wide in the moonlight, but her astonishment was nothing compared to mine because beside her was little Alaina, also holding a spear, and it was Alaina who had thrust her blade into the throat of the man trying to stab me with his makeshift knife. She appeared quite unconcerned, but just looked up at me proudly. ‘Thank you,’ I said hoarsely.

  Two of the other girls had seized spears and helped my men woken by the sudden fight. The freed slaves should have overwhelmed us, but the chain had hindered them and they had only the one sword and two makeshift knives, and my men were given just enough time to seize their own weapons.

  ‘That was too close,’ I told Finan as the dawn showed a sullen grey in the east.

  ‘How’s your shoulder?’ he asked.

  ‘Cut deep, feels stiff, but it’ll mend.’

  ‘The women saved us.’

  ‘And a child.’

  ‘She’s a little wonder,’ Finan said.

  I nearly died that night and it was a child with a spear who saved me. I have been in too many battles and stood in too many shield walls, but that night I felt the despair of death come as close to me as ever I felt it. I still remember that spike getting inexorably nearer to my eye, still smell the man’s rancid breath, still feel the terror of losing Serpent-Breath and thus being denied my place in Valhalla, but then a child, a seven-year-old girl, had driven death away.

  Wyrd bið ful ãræd.

  There was no sign of any pursuit in the dawn, but that did not mean our enemies had given up the chase. There was a mist over the river meadows and that mist, together with the trees on the higher ground and the hedgerows in the fields beyond, could have hidden a dozen scouts who were looking for us. Rædwalh came with the rising sun, riding a big grey mare and bringing a gift of hard cheese and bread. ‘I sent two men to Werlameceaster last night, lord,’ he told me, ‘they haven’t come back.’

  ‘Did you expect them to?’

  ‘Not if they’ve any sense, lord.’ He stared towards the river mist. ‘We’ve seen no East Anglians for a couple of weeks so they should have had no trouble. I dare say they’ll be coming back with Merewalh’s men. And you, lord, what will you do?’

  ‘I won’t stay here,’ I said.

  Rædwalh looked at the children who were wandering around the door of the old barn. ‘You won’t get far with those little ones.’

  ‘With a spear up their backsides?’ I asked, which made him laugh. ‘And I’ve left you a problem,’ I went on.

  ‘A problem, lord?’ I led him into the barn and showed him the slaughtered oarsmen. He grimaced. ‘Aye, that’s a problem.’

  ‘I can drag the corpses into the wood,’ I offered, ‘let the beasts have at them.’

  ‘Maybe better in the river,’ he suggested, and so I ordered all ten corpses to be stripped naked and dragged down to the river.

  Then we walked towards Werlameceaster. Rædwalh had given me directions to follow a wagon track until we reached the great road, then to keep on westwards. ‘The great road?’ I had interrupted him.

  ‘You must know it, lord!’ he said, sounding astonished at the possibility that I did not. ‘The road from Lundene to the north!’

  I did indeed know that road. It had been made by the Romans and it led from Lundene to Eoferwic and beyond that to Bebbanburg. I had ridden that road more times than I could remember. ‘Is it close?’ I asked.

  ‘Close?’ Rædwalh had laughed. ‘You could spit on it from the other side of these woods. You only need reach the road,’ he had continued, ‘then walk two or three miles north and you’ll come to a crossroads—’

  ‘I don’t want to spend any time on the road,’ I had interrupted him.

  ‘Not if you want to stay hidden,’ he had noted shrewdly. My curious group of warriors, freed slaves, women, and children would be noticeable, and travellers would talk. If our pursuers came from Lundene then they would use the old Roman road and would question everyone they met, so the fewer people who saw us the better.

  ‘So I cross the road?’

  ‘You cross the road and keep going westwards! You’ll find plenty of woodland to hide in, and if you go a small way north you’ll find a good track that leads all the way to Werlameceaster.’

  ‘Is it busy?’

  ‘Maybe a few drovers, lord, maybe some pilgrims.’

  ‘Pilgrims?’

  ‘Saint Alban is buried in Werlameceaster, lord.’ Rædwalh had made the sign of the cross. ‘He was executed there, lord, and his killer’s eyes popped out, and quite right too.’

  I had given Rædwalh another gold coin and then we had left. The sky was almost cloudless and as the sun rose so did the warmth. We went slowly and cautiously, pausing among trees to wait for the Roman road to be empty before we crossed, then following hedgerows and ditches that led us westwards. Alaina insisted on carrying the spear which she had used to kill the man trying to pierce my throat. The weapon was far too big for her, but she dragged the hilt along the ground with a stubborn look on her face. ‘You’ll never take it off her now,’ Benedetta said with a smile.

  ‘I’ll put her in the next shield wall,’ I said.

  We walked on in silence, dropping into a shallow valley filled with trees. We followed a forester’s track that led through thick stands of oak, ash, and coppiced beech. A black scar showed where a charcoal maker had burned his fierce fire. We saw no one and heard nothing except our own footfalls, the song of birds, and the clatter of wings through leaves. The woodland ended at a dry ditch beyond which a field of barley climbed to a low crest. Barley. I touched my hammer and told myself I was being a fool. We had passed two other such fields and I had told myself I could not spend the rest of my life avoiding barley fields. Finan must have known what I was thinking. ‘It was only a dream,’ he said.

 
‘Dreams are messages,’ I said uncertainly.

  ‘I dreamed you fought me over ownership of a cow once,’ he said, ‘what sort of message was that?’

  ‘Who won?’

  ‘I think I woke up before we found out.’

  ‘What dream?’ Benedetta asked.

  ‘Ah, just nonsense,’ Finan said.

  We were following a blackthorn hedge that marked the field’s northern boundary, a hedge dense with bindweed and bright with cornflowers, with poppies and pink bramble blossom. North of the hedge lay a field that had been cut for hay. The stubble dropped gently to the road that led to Werlameceaster. We saw no travellers. ‘Wouldn’t it be easier to walk on the road?’ Benedetta asked.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but that’s where the enemy will look for us.’

  She thought about that as we climbed the last few paces to the low crest. ‘But they are behind us, yes?’

  ‘They’re behind us,’ I said confidently, then turned and pointed east to where the road came from the woods. ‘We’ll see them come from there.’

  ‘You’re sure now?’ Finan asked.

  ‘I’m sure,’ I said, and then suddenly I was not sure at all. I still stared at where the road came from the stunted beeches, but I was thinking of Waormund. What would he do? I despised the man, knew him to be cruel and brutal, but had that opinion made me think him stupid? Waormund knew we had escaped up the River Ligan, and he knew too that we could not have gone too far upriver on the low tide before our ship grounded. But when we had abandoned the Brimwisa I had not known how close we were to Werlameceaster. I had left the ship on the eastern bank, hoping to mislead Waormund, but now I doubted that he had even bothered to search upriver for us. It did not need a clever man to work out where we would be going. Waormund knew we needed allies and he knew too that I could not expect to find any in East Anglia, but westwards, scarcely a morning’s walk from the river, lay an army of Æthelstan’s men. Why would Waormund bother to follow us when he could lay in wait for us? I had been searching the eastern and southern ground for any sight of a scout, looking for the glint of sunlight glancing off a helmet or spear-point, but I should have been staring westwards. ‘I’m a fool,’ I said.

  ‘And is that supposed to surprise us?’ Finan asked.

  ‘He’s ahead of us,’ I said. I did not know why I sounded so certain, but the instinct of too many years, of too many battles, and of too much danger was convincing me. Or perhaps it was simply that of all the possibilities the one that scared me most was to have Waormund readying an ambush ahead of us. Prepare for the worst, my father had liked to say, though on the day of his death he had ignored that advice and been cut down by a Dane.

  I halted. To my right was the hedgerow, to my left the big field of barley that was almost ready for harvest, while ahead was a long, gentle slope that dropped to another belt of woodland. It all looked so peaceful. Buntings flew among the barley, a hawk soared high overhead, and a small breeze stirred the leaves. Far to the north a drift of smoke showed where a village lay in a hazed hollow. It seemed impossible that death stalked this summer land.

  ‘What is it?’ Father Oda had joined us.

  I did not answer. I was gazing at the belt of woodland that lay like a wall across our path, and I felt despair. I had seven men, a priest, four women, some freed slaves, and a group of frightened children. I had no horses. I could send no scouts to search our path, I could only hope to hide, yet here I was on the high swell of sunlit land, in a field of barley, and my enemy was waiting for me.

  ‘What do we do?’ Father Oda tried a different question.

  ‘We go back,’ I said.

  ‘Back?’

  ‘Back the way we came.’ I turned to stare east, at the woods where we had passed the black scar of the charcoal makers. ‘We go back to the trees,’ I said, ‘and look for somewhere to hide.’

  ‘But—’ Oda began.

  And was interrupted by Benedetta. ‘Saraceni,’ she hissed. Just that one word, but a word suffused with fear.

  And the one word made me turn to see what had alarmed her.

  Horsemen.

  ‘Merewalh’s men!’ Father Oda said. ‘Praise God!’

  There were maybe twenty horsemen on the pilgrim track, all in mail, all with helmets, and half of them carrying long spears. They were at the place where the road disappeared into the western trees and they had paused there, gazing ahead.

  ‘They are not the enemy?’ Benedetta asked.

  ‘They’re the enemy,’ Finan said in a low voice. Two more men had come from the wood, and both wore the red cloak of Æthelhelm’s troops. We could see them through a gap in the hedge, but it seemed that for the moment they had not seen us.

  ‘Back!’ I snarled. ‘Back! All of you! Back to the trees.’ The children just stared at me, the freed slaves looked confused, and Father Oda opened his mouth as if to speak, but I snarled again, ‘Run! Go! Now!’ They still hesitated until I stepped threateningly towards them. ‘Go!’ They ran, too frightened to stay. ‘All of you, go!’ I was talking to my men who, with Benedetta, had stayed with me. ‘Go with me!’

  ‘Too late,’ Finan said.

  Waormund, I assumed he was one of the horsemen on the road below us, had done what I would have done in his place. He had sent scouts up through the trees and they now appeared where the barley field ended. There were two of them, both mounted on grey horses, and both were staring along the hedgerow to where I stood on their skyline. One of them lifted a horn and blew it. The mournful sound faded, then came again. More men appeared on the road. There were forty now, at least forty.

  ‘Go,’ I said to my men, ‘you too, Finan.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Go!’ I howled the word at him. He hesitated. I untied the heavy money pouch from my belt and forced it into his hands, then pushed Benedetta towards him. ‘Keep her alive, keep her safe! Keep my men alive! Now go!’

  ‘But, lord—’

  ‘They want me, not you, now go!’ He still hesitated. ‘Go!’ I howled the word like a soul in pain.

  Finan went. I know he would rather have stayed, but my rage and the demand that he protect Benedetta persuaded him. Or perhaps he knew that it was pointless to die while there was a chance of life. Someone had to take the news to Bebbanburg.

  Everything ends. Summer ends. Happiness ends. Days of joy are followed by days of sorrow. Even the gods will meet their end in the last battle of Ragnarok when all the evil of the world brings chaos and the sun will turn dark, the black waters will drown the homes of men, and the great beamed hall of Valhalla will burn to ashes. Everything ends.

  I drew Serpent-Breath and walked towards the scouts. Nothing good would come to me, but fate had led me to this moment and a man must endure his fate. There is no choice, and I had invited this fate. I had tried to keep an oath made to Æthelstan, and I had been impetuous and foolish. That was the thought that would not leave my mind as I walked between the summer-bright hedge and the tall stand of barley. A field of barley, I thought. And I thought that I was a fool and I was walking towards a fool’s end.

  And maybe, I thought, this foolish decision would not save my men. It would not save Benedetta. It would not save the girls or the children. But it was the last slender hope. If I had fled with them then the horsemen would have pursued us all and cut down every man. Waormund wanted me, he did not want them, and so I had to stay in the barley field to give Finan, Benedetta and all the rest their one slender hope. Fate would decide, and then I stopped beside a patch of blood-bright poppies because the scout’s horn had drawn the enemy from the road and they were spurring up the slope towards me. I touched the hammer about my neck, but I knew the gods had deserted me. The three Norns were measuring my life’s thread and one of those cackling women held a pair of shears. Everything ends.

  And so I waited. The horsemen filed through a gap in the hedge, but rather than ride straight to me they swerved into the tall barley, the big hooves trampling the stalks. I had my back to the
hedge and the horsemen made a wide half circle around me. Some held spears that they pointed at me as if they feared I would charge them.

  And the last horseman to come was Waormund.

  I had met him only once before that fight in the old house beside Lundene’s river, and at that first meeting I had humiliated him by slapping his face. It was an ugly face, a flat face slashed from his right eyebrow to his lower left jaw by a battle scar. He had a bristling brown beard, eyes dead as stone, and a thin-lipped mouth. He was a huge man, taller even than me, a man to place at the centre of a shield wall to terrify an enemy. This day he rode a great black stallion, the bridle and saddle trimmed with silver. He leaned on the pommel, staring at me, then smiled, except the smile looked more like a grimace. ‘Uhtred of Bebbanburg,’ he said.