Having aimed low lest the small gap between shield and warrior closed or the breeze adjusted the arrow’s flight, once more she put her missile through the leg of an enemy. Unlike the first who had tipped sideways, his cry of pain muted by water, this one fell to his knees. But when the warrior coming behind kicked him out of the way, he also went in the water.
“Take cover!” shouted someone to her left, and she saw the siege boats had drawn near enough to launch missiles. Soon arrows, rocks, and fire would be loosed on the defenders to allow those on the causeway to gain the shore as unopposed as possible.
Hopeless. That word resounding through Vilda as it must others here, she tensed in preparation to flee.
Coward! she rebuked. In Hereward’s absence, this was all. If she and the others ran, Ely would be lost. If they persevered, perhaps their efforts would provide her cousin time to reach them. It was possible he had returned and even now made his way to this side of the isle.
Vilda snatched up another arrow whose tip she had thrust in the soil, sighted it, and released. It found its mark, but her victim remained upright and, limping, continued forward.
As other rebels continued firing on the enemy, she loosed two more arrows in quick succession. One struck a shield thrust low, the other swiped a leg in passing when she jerked as the first stones launched by the siege boats slammed into the barricade before her.
Having no more arrows and the warriors on the causeway coming off it into knee-high marsh, she wrenched her sling from her belt, loaded it with a stone from her pouch, and sent it flying. It struck the Norman’s helmet, turning him to the side and into the path of another who pushed past him.
Vilda could not know the fate of her target, arrows flying ahead of those trudging the mud toward the shore causing the man beside her to snatch her down.
As more rocks landed, pained cries arose from those whose fortifications were not high enough to keep missiles from striking flesh and bone. Then another barrage of arrows, and fleeing defenders began falling between the shore and treeline.
“Nay!” Vilda yelled, but her protest did not stop foot soldiers from coming ashore as those on siege boats cleared the way for them. Then William’s cavalry arrived at a good pace, confident of being mostly unopposed.
“Mostly,” she rasped and reloaded her sling.
“’Tis done, Lady,” said the man beside her. “Now we run, and if we are the fortunate ones, stay ahead of them until we find cover.”
He was right, a glance both sides revealing the fallen were outnumbered by the fleeing, many of whom would suffer the same out from behind the fortifications, but she had a pouch of stones eager to make their acquaintance with Normans. Too, she would not be alone in remaining a while longer, a score of others continuing to defend against the trespassers.
“Alvilda?”
“Go, and I will follow,” she said and silently added, when my last stone soars.
“Stay close!” He turned and ran.
Fearing his would be one of the bodies she would weave among when she had done all she could, Vilda turned her attention to the enemy who had gained a firm footing on the shoreline.
Each time a defender’s arrow flew into their ranks, scattering those near whomever it struck, she cast a stone, and many found their mark.
Still, the enemy came, and soon the mounted ones would be leaning out of their saddles to slash at any who continued to fight a battle lost.
“Retreat!” shouted a rebel to her left and ran opposite with others who had held until foot soldiers were thirty feet distant.
She still had three stones, one cupped in the sling, and she could snatch less worthy ones from the ground. However, as any chance of escape would be lost, she ran, tears burning paths down her cheeks.
Had not the rebel ahead collapsed with a dagger protruding from his neck, she would not have looked back and made more memories of the horror. But his convulsing as crimson sank into the dirt around his head made her turn to seek out his killer.
It was impossible to know who had flown the blade, but it mattered not who paid for it.
Seeing beyond the foot soldiers the cavalry on the shore, glad Guy had to be somewhere in the rear, she adjusted her fingers in the sling’s straps, then screamed and sent the stone flying.
It struck her target’s forehead with such force he fell onto his back.
Not dead, she told herself and, swinging away, wished it did not matter she might have killed since they did not concern themselves over the deaths of Saxons.
Weaving among the fallen, she thought the Lord must be with her to see her reach the cover of trees without injury or capture.
She was wrong about injury, though she did not realize someone had drawn blood until she paused on the road forking one way toward the abbey, the other toward the town, and saw on the latter the dust kicked up by Saxons running ahead of her.
Why did they not seek sanctuary at the abbey that was considerably nearer? she wondered and, feeling a sting at her neck, drew a hand across it. Staring at blood on fingers and palms, she guessed its loss more responsible for lightheadedness than fatigue and fear. Thus, best she go to the abbey.
Minutes later, she understood the reason the others had made for town when she was denied entrance. Those of this holy order had turned their countrymen away as if they were the enemy. Considering what had befallen the impregnable isle of Ely, perhaps that was what the resistance had become to Abbot Thurstan.
That possibility nearly made her follow the others, but fearing she would encounter pursuing Normans and uncertain as to the extent of her injury, she
