I had sheathed Wasp-Sting again, thinking I would not need her, but now I dragged her from her scabbard. ‘Out of the way,’ I shouted. I would be damned before I let my men fight a svinfylkjas without me. I pushed between the files, bellowing at men to make way, then thrust my way between my son and Wibrund, a tall Frisian armed with a lead-weighted axe. I crouched, shield in front, and drew Wasp-Sting.
‘You shouldn’t be here, father,’ my son said.
‘If I fall,’ I said, ‘look after Benedetta.’
‘Of course.’
A cheer had gone up from the enemy when they saw me join the front rank. There was reputation to be made in the death of a warlord. I looked past the shield’s rim and saw the anger, fear and determination on bearded faces. They wanted my death. They wanted renown. They wanted the song of Uhtred’s death to be sung in Scottish halls, and then the spears were flung, the swine-wedge screamed their war cry.
And the battle began.
Fifteen
The spears were flung from the rear ranks of the Scots and thumped into our shields. I was lucky, a spear hit the top half of the shield hard enough for the tip to show through the willow, but the weight of the haft pulled it free and the spear fell at my feet as I stood to meet the swine-wedge’s charge. They came for us in a screaming rush, mouths and eyes wide, axes lifted, heavy spears ready to lunge, and then they reached the holes we had dug.
At the tip of the swine-wedge was an enormous brute, his beard spread across his mailed chest, his half-toothless mouth open in a snarl, his eyes fixed on my face, his scarred helmet decorated with a silver cross, his shield showing the red hand of Domnall, and his axe’s edge glinting. He raised the axe, plainly intending to hook my shield down to uncover me before he lunged with the spike that tipped the axe-head, but then his right foot slammed into one of the holes. I saw his eyes widen as he tripped, he slammed down onto his shield, slid forward on the damp ground, and Wibrund, to my right, struck down with his lead-weighted axe to split the man’s helmet and skull. First blood splashed bright. The rest of the swine-wedge was in chaos. At least three men had fallen and now others tripped on them, stumbled, and their shields flew wide as they flailed for balance, and my men stepped forward, lunged or hacked, and the swine-wedge became a mess of blood, corpses, and writhing men. The ranks behind pushed forward, thrusting the leading men into the chaos where more were tripped. One youngster, his beard little more than red fuzz, kept his footing and suddenly found himself facing me and he screamed in rage, looked terrified and swung his sword right-handed in a wild hack that I caught on my shield. He had forgotten his training because he turned his whole body to the left with the violence of his swing and his shield went with him and it was easy to slide Wasp-Sting into his belly. His mail was old and rusty, with rents lashed with twine, and I remember thinking it was perhaps a coat discarded by his father. I supported him on my shield as I ripped the blade up, as I twisted it and tugged it free. He fell at my feet, half whimpering and half gasping, and my son thrust his seax down to end his noise.
An axe blade struck my shield so hard that the willow boards split. I could see the blade’s newly sharpened edge showing in the gap and reckoned the weapon was trapped there. I tugged the shield back, dragging the man towards me, and again Wasp-Sting stabbed upwards. This was unthinking work, just a lifetime of practice that was made easy by the enemy’s disarray. The man tugged at his axe as he tried to escape the agony in his guts, and I wrenched the shield, the axe came free and I slammed the iron shield-boss into his face, then rammed Wasp-Sting into his groin. All that happened in the time it takes to draw two or three breaths, and already the Scottish attackers were in chaos. The bodies of dead and wounded men tripped those still on their feet and any man who tripped joined that grim obstacle. The men behind the fallen had learned of the grass-filled holes, could see the bloody mess in front of them and so came cautiously. They no longer shouted insults, but tried to step around the dead, and their shields no longer touched, which made them more cautious still. Caution makes a man nervous, and our enemy had lost the one advantage an attacker has in a shield wall, the sheer impetus of fear-driven rage. ‘Spears!’ I shouted, wanting more spearmen in our front rank. The Scots could not charge us now, only come carefully past the grass-filled holes and past their dead and dying comrades, and that made them vulnerable to lunges from our ash-hafted spears.
That first charge had been stopped and the Scottish front rank had suffered grievously, most of them now a blood-soaked barrier to the men behind, and those men were content to wait rather than stumble over the dead and dying and so come to my unbroken shield wall. They shouted insults and beat blades against shields, but few tried to assault us, and those few retreated when spears reached for them. I saw Domnall, his face furious, dragging men to make a
