I knew at that moment I was making a mistake, that he had fooled me, that I was doing just what he wanted. I suddenly remembered the fight on the terrace above the Temes and how he had gripped my mail coat. That was how he fought. He wanted me close so he could grab hold of me and shake me as a terrier shakes a rat. He wanted me close where his height, weight and strength could overwhelm me, and now I was very close. I was passing him, still going to my right, and I saw his left hand reaching for me and I almost pulled away, but the thought was too late, I was committed and so I thrust the seax. I ignored the fiery pain in my left shoulder and I just rammed Wasp-Sting as hard as I could. It hurt, that thrust, it hurt terribly. The effort to drive Wasp-Sting deep made me gasp aloud, but I kept thrusting her, ignoring the pain.
Waormund had been reaching to grip one of my cheek-pieces, but Wasp-Sting was quicker. She pierced mail and leather. She broke through thick muscle. She buried half her length in his gut, and his reaching hand fell away as he turned quickly, grimacing, so quickly that he tore Wasp-Sting’s hilt from my hand so that she stayed in his belly, blood just showing in the links she had pierced. I backed away. ‘You’re slow,’ I said, the first words I had spoken to him.
‘Bastard,’ he spat and, ignoring the seax in his gut, came for me again. He was angry now. He had been contemptuous before, but now he was nothing but fury, hacking Serpent-Breath in savage short strokes, her blade ringing on my blade as he forced me to retreat by the sheer weight of the blows. But his anger was hot, it made him unthinking, and the blows, though brutally hard, were easy enough to parry. I taunted him. Called him a beef-witted piece of shit, said his mother had shat him instead of giving birth, that through all Britain men called him Æthelhelm’s arse-licker. ‘You’re dying, you maggot,’ I mocked him, ‘that blade in your belly is killing you!’ He knew that was probably true. I have seen men recover from ghastly wounds, but rarely from a gut stroke. ‘It will be a slow painful death,’ I told him, ‘and men will remember me as the man who killed Æthelhelm’s arse-licker.’
‘Bastard!’ Waormund was almost crying in his fury. He knew he was probably doomed, but at least he could kill me first and so salvage his reputation. He swung again and I parried Serpent-Breath and felt the force of the blow shudder up my arm. Serpent-Breath had shattered many a blade, but by a miracle my borrowed sword had not broken from any of his blows. He lunged fast, I twisted away, almost tripped on a loose stone, and Waormund was bellowing now, half rage and half pain. Wasp-Sting was deep in his entrails, she had ripped them open, and the blood at his belly was welling through the mail to drip on the road. He tried to pull her free, but the flesh had closed on her blade, gripping it, and his attempt only hurt him, and he left her there, lunged again, but slower, and I knocked his thrust aside and lunged in turn, aiming for his face, then dropping my blade to strike Wasp-Sting’s hilt. That hurt him, I saw it in his eyes. He swayed back, stumbled, and then found a new fury and a new energy. He attacked frantically, driving me back with swing after massive swing, grunting with each huge effort. I parried some blows, stepped away from others, content now to let Wasp-Sting kill him slowly and so buy us time. Waormund was weakening, but his strength was prodigious and I was being forced back towards Rumwald’s shield wall. The Mercians had cheered when they saw me stab Wasp-Sting into Waormund’s gut, but now they were silent, awed by the sight of the giant warrior, a sword-hilt sticking from his belly, attacking with such demented anger. He was in pain, he was slowing, but still he tried to hack me down.
Then a horn sounded to the west. An urgent horn. It was being blown from the ramparts, and the sound half checked Waormund. ‘Now!’ Æthelhelm bellowed. ‘Now!
He was telling his shield wall to advance, telling them to kill us, telling them to close the gate.
But Waormund had momentarily turned at the sound of his master’s voice and my borrowed sword, with its edges nicked by the violence of Serpent-Breath’s attacks, slid through his tangled beard and into his throat. Blood jetted into the hot air. He looked back to me, all strength gone, and for a heartbeat he just stared at me in apparent disbelief. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but blood spilled from his lips and then, oddly slowly, he fell to his knees on the dusty gravel that was soaked with his blood. He still looked at me, only now it seemed he was begging for pity, but I had no pity. I struck Wasp-Sting’s hilt again and Waormund whimpered, and then fell sideways.
‘Kill them all!’ Æthelhelm bellowed.
I just had time to drop the blood-tipped borrowed sword, stoop and prise Serpent-Breath from Waormund’s weakening fingers. Then I ran, or at least stumbled, back to the shield wall where
