trapped there by the falling tide. They were waiting for the rising water to float them free, but we arrived first, coming into the sea lake through the narrow entrance that leads from the northern bank of the Solente. Once through the entrance a ship is in a world of marshes, sandbanks, islands, and fish traps, not unlike the waters of the Gew?sc. We had a man aboard who had grown up on those waters, and he guided us, but the Danes had lacked any such expertise and they had been misled by a line of withies, stuck into the sand at low tide to mark a channel, which had been deliberately moved to entice them onto a mudbank on which they were now firmly stuck. Which was splendid. We had them trapped like foxes in a onehole earth and all we had to do was anchor in the sealake entrance, hope our anchors held against the strong currents, wait for them to float off, and then slaughter them, but Alfred was in a hurry. He wanted to get back to his land forces and insisted we return him to Hamtun before nightfall, and so, against Leofric’s advice, we were ordered to an immediate attack.
That, too, was splendid, except that we could not approach the mudbank directly for the channel was narrow and it would mean going in single file and the lead ship would face seven Danish ships on its own, and so we had to row a long way to approach them from the south, which meant that they could escape to the sea lake’s entrance if the tide floated them off, which it might very well do, and Leofric muttered into his beard that we were going about the battle all wrong. He was furious with Alfred. Alfred, meanwhile, was fascinated by the enemy ships, that he had never seen so clearly before. “Are the beasts representations of their gods?” he asked me, referring to the finely carved prows and sterns that flaunted their monsters, dragons, and serpents.
“No, lord, just beasts,” I said. I was beside him, having relinquished the steering oar to the man who knew these waters, and I told the king how the carved heads could be lifted off their posts so that they did not terrify the spirits of the land.
“Write that down,” he ordered a priest. “And the wind vanes at the mastheads?” he asked me, looking at the nearer one that was painted with an eagle. “Are they designed to frighten the spirits?”
I did not answer. Instead I was staring at the seven ships across the slick hump of the mudbank and I recognized one.WindViper. The lightcolored strake in the bow was clear enough, but even so I would have recognized her.WindViper, lovelyWindViper, ship of dreams, here at Heilincigae.
“Uhtred?” Alfred prompted me.
“They’re just wind vanes, lord,” I said. And ifWindViper was here, was Ragnar here too? Or had Kjartan taken the ship and leased it to a shipmaster?
“It seems a deal of trouble,” Alfred said pettishly, “to decorate a ship.”
“Men love their ships,” I said, “and fight for them. You honor what you fight for, lord. We should decorate our ships.” I spoke harshly, thinking we would love our ships more if they had beasts on their prows and had proper names likeBloodSpiller, SeaWolf, orWidowMaker. Instead theHeahengel led theCeruphin andCristenlic through the tangled waters, and behind us were theApostol and theEftwyrd, which meant Judgment Day and was probably the best named of our fleet because she sent more than one Dane to the sea’s embrace.
The Danes were digging, trying to deepen the treacherous channel and so float their ships, but as we came nearer they realized they would never complete such a huge task and went back to their stranded boats to fetch armor, helmets, shields, and weapons. I pulled on my coat of mail, its leather lining stinking of old sweat, and I pulled on the helmet, then strapped SerpentBreath on my back and WaspSting to my waist. This was not going to be a sea fight, but a land battle, shield wall against shield wall, a maul in the mud, and the Danes had the advantage because they could mass where we must land and they could meet us as we came off the ships, and I did not like it. I could see Leofric hated it, but Alfred was calm enough as he pulled on his helmet. “God is with us,” he said.
“He needs to be,” Leofric muttered, then raised his voice to shout at the steersman. “Hold her there!” It was tricky to keepHeahengel still in the swirling current, but we backed oars and she slewed around as Leofric peered at the shore. I assumed he was waiting for the other ships to catch up so that we could all land together, but he had seen a spit of muddy sand projecting from the shore and had worked out that if we beachedHeahengel there then our first men off the prow would not have to face a shield wall composed of seven Viking crews. The spit was narrow, only wide enough for three or four men to stand abreast, and a fight there would be between equal numbers. “It’s a good enough place to die, earsling,”
he told me, and led me forward. Alfred hurried behind us. “Wait,” Leofric snapped at the king so savagely that Alfred actually obeyed. “Put her on the spit!” Leofric yelled back to the steersman, “Now!”
Ragnar was there. I could see the eagle wing on its pole, and then I saw him, looking so like his father that for a moment I thought I was a boy again.
“Ready, earsling?” Leofric said. He had assembled his half dozen best warriors, all of us in the prow, while behind us the bowmen readied to launch their arrows at the Danes who were hurrying toward the narrow stretch of muddy sand. Then we lurched forward asHeahengel ’s bow scraped aground. “Now!”
Leofric shouted, and we jumped overboard into water that came up to our knees, and then we instinctively touched shields, made the wall, and I was gripping WaspSting as the first Danes ran at us.
“Kill them!” Leofric shouted, and I thrust the shield forward and there was the great clash of iron boss on limewood, and an ax whirled overhead, but a man behind me caught it on his shield and I was stabbing under my shield, bringing the short sword up, but she rammed into a Danish shield. I wrenched her free, stabbed again, and felt a pain in my ankle as a blade sliced through water and boot. Blood swirled in the sea, but I was still standing, and I heaved forward, smelling the Danes, gulls screaming overhead, and more of the Danes were coming, but more of our men were joining us, some up to their waists in the tide, and the front of the battle was a shoving match now because no one had room to swing a weapon. It was a grunting, cursing shield battle, and Leofric, beside me, gave a shout and we heaved up and they stepped back a half pace and our arrows slashed over our helmets and I slammed WaspSting forward, felt her break through leather or mail, twisted her in flesh, pulled her back, pushed with the shield, kept my head down under the rim, pushed again, stabbed again, brute force, stout shield, and good steel, nothing else. A man was drowning, blood streaming in the ripples from his twitching body, and I suppose we were shouting, but I never remember much about that. You remember the pushing, the smell, the snarling bearded faces, the anger, and thenCristenlic rammed her bows into the flank of the Danish line, crumpling men into the water, drowning and crushing them, and her crew jumped into the small waves with spears, swords, and axes. A third boat arrived, more men landed, and I heard Alfred behind me, shouting at us to break their line, to kill them. I was ramming WaspSting down at a man’s ankles, jabbing again and again, pushing with the shield, and then he stumbled and our line surged forward and he tried to stab up into my groin, but Leofric slammed his ax head down, turning the man’s face into a mask of blood and broken teeth. “Push!” Leofric yelled, and we heaved at the enemy, and suddenly they were breaking away and running.
We had not beaten them. They were not running from our swords and spears, but rather because the rising tide was floating their ships and they ran to rescue them, and we stumbled after them, or rather I stumbled because my right ankle was bleeding and hurting, and we still did not have enough men ashore to overwhelm their crews and they were hurling themselves on board their ships, but one crew, brave men all, stayed on the sand to hold us back.
“Are you wounded, earsling?” Leofric asked me.
“It’s nothing.”
“Stay back,” he ordered me. He was formingHeahengel ’s men into a new shield wall, a wall to thump into that one brave crew, and Alfred was there now, mail armor shining bright, and the Danes must have known he was a great lord, but they did not abandon their ships for the honor of killing him. I think that if Alfred had brought the dragon banner and fought beneath it, so that the Danes could recognize him as the king, they would have stayed and fought us and might very well have killed or captured Alfred, but the Danes were always wary of taking too many casualties and they hated losing their beloved ships, and so they just wanted to be away from that place. To which end they were willing to pay the price of the one ship to save the others, and that one ship was notWindViper. I could see her being pushed into the channel, could see her creeping away backward, see her oars striking against sand rather than water, and I splashed through the small waves, skirting our shield wall and leaving the fight to my right as I bellowed at the ship. “Ragnar! Ragnar!”
Arrows were flicking past me. One struck my shield and another glanced off my helmet with a click. That reminded me that he would not recognize me with the helmet on and so I dropped WaspSting and bared my head. “Ragnar!”
The arrows stopped. The shield walls were crashing, men were dying, most of the Danes were escaping, and Earl Ragnar stared at me across the widening gap and I could not tell from his face what he was thinking, but he
