“About 500 of them.” Mael Coluim sounded calm. “And hardly a warrior worthy of the name. If they are flesh, they will bleed, and if they bleed, we can kill them.”
“With that force, Erik's men outnumber us three to two.” Melcorka said. “And I am not sure if these grey men are flesh, or if they can bleed.”
“Then we will have to fight all the harder,” the king said, climbing back down the tree. “Form up!” He shouted. “Column of march! We are facing two enemies, lads, so keep together and remember our war cry: Aigha Bas – battle and die.”
“Aigha Bas!” The cry was taken up across the Alban camp. “Aigha Bas!”
The war-pipes began their skirl as men formed into a column, and the mounted men pushed out from the flanks. An eager young man lifted the blue boar banner as two stout men lifted long horns and blew a blast that reverberated into the sky and made women cover their ears.
“You lads!” Mael Coluim pointed to a troop of border cavalry. “Ride out west until you see an army advancing along the shore. Harass them and slow them down as best you can.”
“Yes, your Grace!” The captain of the troop seemed quite happy to trot westward and pit his 30 men against an un-numbered host of the enemy.
As the army formed up, Melcorka looked around, still hoping that Bradan would join her. He did not. They marched on, slow-footed to keep formation, with Norse horns answering the scream of the pipes, and raucous cries coming from the direction of Culbin sands. As they neared the enemy, Melcorka could easily make out the words of the Norsemen.
“Odin! Odin! Odin!”
“Odin claims you, men of Alba! Odin claims you!”
“We are fighting pagans then,” MacBain said. “I thought the Norse, Danes and Angles were all converted to Christianity.”
“It seems they are still pagan under a thin veneer,” Melcorka said.
MacBain touched the Clach Bhuaidh. “Then, when they die, they will descend to hell,” he said simply.
Culbin Sands was a vast expanse of land, mostly open with sandy dunes, but interspersed with patches of woodland, small farms and settlements, now all abandoned through fear of Erik's Norsemen.
“That is the sand where I shall die,” Melcorka said quietly, “and where Bradan will walk away with Astrid.”
With his flanks resting on dense copses of woodland, Erik had set his army in two triple lines, three hundred paces apart and with banners flapping above. In between, Erik stood, looking very relaxed and with his grey-clad servant at his side. “Keep in column,” Mael Coluim ordered. “Archers, slingmen, spearmen, to the front!”
At the sight of the Albans, the Norse gave a great roar and began to clatter their swords against their shields, in a regular beat that matched their constant chanting.
“Odin! Odin! Odin!”
“Aigha Bas!” The Albans responded. “Aigha Bas!”
The Norse let loose a volley of arrows that rose high, wavered and came down amongst the Alban ranks, hitting a score of men. Melcorka saw one warrior pluck an arrow from his leather jacket, turn it around and hurl it back at the Norse. MacBain stood slightly in front of the battle-column, scorning the spears and arrows of the enemy.
“Form a wedge!” Mael Coluim ordered, positioning himself at the front of his men. “Archers and spearmen to the left flank!”
The men moved at once, a hundred skirmishers facing 10 times that number of Norsemen while the main Alban army formed a wedge whose point aimed directly at Erik. The blue boar growled forward, now beside the serene blue-and-white of the saltire. A volley of Norse spears, longer than a tall man and as thick as a woman's wrist, flew right over the Alban ranks. The Norse battle cry altered.
“Odin claims you!” They shouted as their spears arced overhead. “Odin claims you!”
“The Norse claim anybody underneath the passage of their spears,” Melcorka explained.
MacBain grinned. “Do they indeed? Aigha bas!” He shouted through powerful lungs. “Aigha bas!”
The Albans tramped forward, spears thrusting, feet sinking ankle-deep in the shifting sands, men shoulder to shoulder. Men fell, for their comrades to step over them or push them out of the column. The pipes screamed, war-horns blared, and men's grunts and roars filled the air beneath the constant hiss of falling arrows.
“They're not wavering,” a man shouted.
“Neither are we!” MacBain roared. “Aigha bas!”
The Alban wedge aimed directly at Erik until they were only 40 paces away, when Mael Coluim altered his angle of attack, directing it at the Norse formation on the Alban right. While the spearmen and archers kept the second Norse battle line busy, Mael Coluim rammed straight into the first. Stepping aside from the main army, MacBain pursued his personal battle.
“You are mine, Erik Egilsson!” MacBain roared, drawing his sword and running forward.
“Well met, dead man!” Erik waited for the attack, while Melcorka watched, holding Defender. She batted away a spear, dodged an arrow and tried to ignore everything except the combat between Erik and MacBain. She knew that the High King could use her sword but, in her mind, defeating Erik would take the sting from the invasion.
MacBain was no mere brawler, but a skilled man who fought with cunning. He feinted and slashed, stopped halfway, altered his pattern of attack and made Erik withdraw a step or two. Again, sunlight reflected on the Clach Bhuaidh, giving a soft internal glow to the crystal.
“You fight well,” Erik acknowledged, “for a dead man.”
Not wasting breath on speech, MacBain continued to press, pushing with his shield, ducking low to slash at Erik's legs, and then thrusting high at his eyes before aiming for his kidneys. Erik took another step back, no longer taunting as he blocked with his spiked shield and parried with Legbiter. Melcorka saw him glance at the grey man, who opened the top of his bag and peered inside, although, at what, Melcorka did not know. She edged
