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

ramparts. He frowned, but I gave him a friendly nod. His shield, showing Æthelhelm’s leaping stag, was propped against the inner parapet. The men below, I thought, might be from the East Anglian fyrd, but the shield betrayed that the spearmen on the ramparts were West Saxons and probably fiercely loyal to Æthelhelm. ‘Hot day!’ I said to the older man, my voice muffled by the laced cheek-pieces, then walked to the outer parapet. I leaned on the sun-warmed stone and for a moment everything to the north appeared as I remembered it. Beneath the walls was a scum-covered ditch crossed by a stone bridge. A small crowd had gathered beyond the bridge. There were merchants come from the north with packhorses, folk from the villages with eggs or vegetables to sell, all of them barred from entering the city, but unwilling to leave. Small hovels lined the road, and a graveyard had spread into parched pastureland, beyond which were woods thick with summer leaves. A village lay a mile or so to the north where smoke rose into the west wind. Then more woods before the land climbed to a bare hilltop. Other villages, betrayed by smoke, lay hidden in the woods to the west. A small child drove a flock of geese across the pasture and I fancied I could hear her singing, but perhaps that was my imagination. A man, seeing me appear on the wall, shouted that he wanted to bring his packhorses into the city, but I ignored him, gazing instead into the heat-hazed distance. And then I saw them. I saw horsemen shadowed by trees, scores of horsemen.

‘Merewalh?’ Finan suggested.

‘Æthelstan, I hope,’ I said fervently, but whoever the far horsemen were, they were just watching.

‘So will you please open the damned gate?’ Brihtwulf demanded loudly and angrily from beneath us.

‘Twenty-eight men up here,’ Finan said, still talking low. He meant twenty-eight men on the gate’s parapet, most of them crowded onto the half-circles of the twin bastions that jutted out to the ditch’s edge. I nodded.

Wihtgar and his men had reached the parapet at the far side of the gate. The older man looked at them, frowned, turned back to me, then saw that Immar was carrying the furled banner. ‘Is that a banner, boy!’ he demanded.

‘Will you open the gate?’ Brihtwulf called.

‘Show me the banner, boy!’

I turned and held out a hand to Immar. ‘Give it to me,’ I said. I took the staff and unrolled a foot or so of the flag, then tossed it at the older man’s feet. ‘Look for yourself,’ I said, ‘it’s the dragon of Wessex.’ And so it would be, I thought, if the gods were with me today. The man leaned down to the staff and I took a step towards him.

Finan put a hand on my arm. ‘You’re still slow, lord,’ he said in a very low voice, ‘let me.’

He kept his hand on my arm, watching as the older man took hold of the flag’s edge to unroll it. All of his men were watching as he pulled to reveal the dragon’s clawed forelegs. He pulled again, about to reveal the lightning bolt in the dragon’s grip. Then Finan moved.

And it began.

Finan was the fastest man I have ever seen in a fight. He was thin, lithe, and moved like a wildcat. I have spent hours practising sword-skill with him and I reckon he would have killed me nine times out of ten, and the older man never stood a chance. He was looking up in surprise as Finan reached him, Soul-Stealer was already out of her scabbard, but Finan just kicked him under the chin, jerking his head back, then the blade swung in a savage back cut that threw the man sideways, throat severed and blood spurting high over the inner parapet, and Finan was already threatening the men watching from the bastion. They were not ready, any more than the older man whose life pulsed away onto Æthelstan’s banner had been ready. They were still lowering their spears as Finan attacked, and my borrowed sword was only halfway out of her scabbard as he thrust Soul-Stealer into a man’s belly and ripped her sideways.

‘Open the gate!’ I shouted. ‘Open it!’

I shrugged the shield off my shoulder. Wihtgar was attacking from the far side of the gate. The fighting had started so fast, so unexpectedly, and our enemy was still confused. Their leader was dead, they were suddenly assailed by swords and by Folcbald wielding a massive axe. Hulbert and his Mercians were attacking westwards, driving the defenders on the ramparts away from the gate, while I joined Finan in clearing the bastions and the fighting platform above the arch. We were desperate. We had managed to cross an enemy-held city, we had reached this gate without being discovered, and now we were surrounded by enemies, and our only hope of living was to kill.

There is pity in war. A dying boy, gutted like a beast and calling for his mother is pitiable, regardless that a moment before he had been screaming curses and trying to kill me. My borrowed sword was no Serpent-Breath, but she went through the boy’s mail and leather easily enough, and I cut off his yelps for his mother with a downwards thrust through his left eye. Beside me Finan, screaming in his Irish tongue, had put two men down and his blade was red to the hilt. Gerbruht, bellowing in his native Frisian, was swinging an axe against men who had not been given time to retrieve their shields. We were thrusting the West Saxons back into the half circle of the bastion, and they were screaming for mercy. Some had not even had time to draw their swords and they were so packed together that their spearmen could not lower their weapons. ‘Drop your blades,’ I bellowed, ‘and jump into the ditch!’

All that mattered was to clear the gate’s parapet. Wihtgar, with his Mercians, was