King Alfred's Viking Part 33

"Ealdorman," I said, "while there is yet time let us form up in a wedge and go through that line. Then shall we fight back to back, and shall have some advantage. I and my men, who have axes, will go first."

Then my few vikings cried, "Ay, king!" and shouted; whereat Odda laughed grimly.

"Go on, Berserker--axes must needs lead--we will do it."

Then we changed the ranks quickly, and I and Kolgrim and Harek made the point of that wedge. Heregar and the banner were in the midst, and Odda himself was not far behind me, putting his best men along the two foremost faces of the wedge.

"We shall not be foremost long," I said; "we shall be surrounded when once we are through the line."

But as we came on, Hubba closed up his men into a dense, square ma.s.s.

"Ho!" said Harek to me; "you are wrong, my king."

Now we were close at hand, and the Danish arrows flew among us, and the javelins fell pretty thickly. I think that a wedge bears this better than any other formation, for it is easy to stop the weapons that reach it.

Our men were silent now, and I was glad, having known already what that meant; but the Danes began to yell their war cries. Then we were within ten paces of them, and I gripped shield and axe and gave the word to charge, and Odda answered it.

Then was such a terrible roar from the Saxons as I had never heard--the roar of desperate men who have their foes before them, more awful than any war shout. And at that even the vikings shrank a little, closing their ranks, and then, with all the weight of the close-ranked wedge behind me, we were among them, and our axes were at work where men were driven on one another before us; and the press thinned and scattered at last, while the Danes howled, and for a moment we three and a few lines behind us stood with no foemen before us, while all down the sides of the wedge the fight raged. Then we halted, and the Danes lapped round us. I do not know that we lost more than two men in this first onset, so heavy was it; but the Danes fell everywhere.

Now began fighting such as I had heard of, but had never seen before. The scalds sing of men who fought as fights a boar at bay in a ring of hounds, unfearing and silent; and so fought we. My axe broke, and I took to sword Helmbiter, and once Kolgrim went Berserker, and howled, and leaped from my side into a throng which fell on us, and drove them back, slaying three outright, and meeting with no hurt.

Our wedge held steady. Men fell, but we closed up; and there grew a barrier of slain before us. I had not seen Hubba since we first closed in, and then he had been a little to the right of where we struck his line, under a golden banner, whereon was a raven broidered, that hung motionless in the still morning air.

Presently the Danish onslaught slackened. Men were getting away from their line to the rear, worn out or wounded, and the hill beyond them was covered with those who had fallen out. They had beaten against our lines as one beats on a wall--hewing out stones, indeed, but without stirring it. They had more hurt than we.

Odda pushed to my side, and said to me:

"What if we advance towards the hill crest?"

"Slowly, then," I said.

He pa.s.sed the word, and we began to move, and the Danes tried to stay us. Then their attack on the rear face of the wedge slackened and ceased, and they got round before us to fight from the higher ground. At once Odda saw that an attack in line as they wavered thus would do all for us, so he swung his hard Devon levies to right and left on us Nors.e.m.e.n as the centre--maybe there were twenty of us left at that time--and as the wings swung forward with a rolling cheer, the Danes crumbled away before them, and we drove them up the little hill and over the brow, fighting among the half-burnt watch fires and over heaps of plunder, even to where the tall "Raven" drooped from its staff.

Then I saw the mighty Hubba before me; and had I not known it already, one might see defeat written in his face as he looked across to his ships. His men were back now, and stood on the far sh.o.r.e, helpless. Then was a cheer from our left, and he looked there, and I looked also.

Out of the fort came our wounded--every one who could put one foot before another--a strange and ghastly crowd of fifty or sixty men who would yet do what they might for England. And with them was a mixed crowd of thralls and village folk, bearing what arms they could find on the place whence we drove the first Danes, and forks, and bill hooks, and heavy staves.

I do not know if the Danes saw what manner of force came to our help; but I think they did not. Many broke and fled to the ships; but Hubba's face grew hard and desperate, and he cried to his men to stand, and they gathered round him and the Raven banner.

Once again our great wedge formed up, and again charged into the thick of the Danes. Then I faced the great chief, and men fell back from us to see what fight should be. But from beside me came Odda.

"My fight, Ra.n.a.ld," he said, and strode before the Dane.

His sword was gone--the hilt and three inches of blade hung from his wrist--and his shield was notched and gashed. His only weapon was the broad-bladed Saxon spear, ashen shafted, with iron studs along its length below the head. He was a head shorter than the Dane, who was, in truth, the most splendid warrior I had ever seen; and he bore a broad axe, wedge beaten and gold inlaid. There was not much to choose between his shield and Odda's, but I thought the spear the weaker weapon.

"Axe against spear," said Harek; "here is somewhat of which to sing."

Once Odda feinted, lunging at Hubba's face; and the Dane raised his shield a little, but did not move else, nor did his eyelids so much as flinch, and his steady look never left his foe's face. Then, as Odda recovered, the great axe flashed suddenly, and fell harmless as its mark sprang back from its sweep; while like light the spear point went forward over the fallen axe, that recovered too slowly to turn it, and rang true on the round shield that met it.

I had not thought much of spear play until now, for we think little of the weapon.

Again the Saxon lunged, and Hubba hewed at the spear shaft, splintering it a little as the quick-eyed spearman swung it away from the blow. Then the b.u.t.t was over Odda's left shoulder, and before one could tell that its swing aside had ended, forward flew the point, darting from left to right over Hubba's arm that had not yet recovered from the lost axe blow, and behind the shield's rim.

That blow went home, and the mighty Dane reeled and fell.

One moment's silence, and then a howl from the Danes who watched, and they flew on us, bearing us back a pace or two. Odda went down under the rush that was made on him, and I called to my comrades, and stood over him, and beat them back. But Hubba's fall was the end.

Even as I stood there, there came a rash of men from our ranks past me; and I cheered, for I saw Heregar's silver mail driving straight for the Raven standard, at the head of the young thanes who were the shield wall of the Dragon of Wess.e.x. Then, too, closed in the wounded men and the country folk; and the Danes broke and fled towards the ships in disorder. We followed for a little way, and then the thralls ended matters. They say that not one Dane reached the river's bank, beyond which their comrades watched and raged, powerless to help them.

I went back to where Odda had fallen, and at that time there rose a thundering cheer of victory from our wearied line, and helms were cast into the air, and weapons waved in wild joy. That roused one who lay before me, and white and shaking, up rose Odda from among the slain. I went to him, and got my arm round him; and again the men cheered, and little by little the colour came back to his face.

"I thought you slain outright," I said; "are you much hurt?"

"I cannot tell," he said. "I believe I am sound in limb, but my wind is gone. It is ill for a stout man to have mail-clad Danes hurled on him by heavy-handed vikings."

So he said, gasping, but trying to laugh. And, indeed, he was unwounded, save for a cut or two, and he still grasped his red spear in his right hand.

Now I looked on our men, and saw that we might not bide for another fight. Already some whom the wild joy of battle had kept strong in spite of wounds were falling among their comrades, and it seemed to me that wounds were being bound up everywhere.

But there was a token of victory that made these seem as nothing.

In the midst of all Heregar stood with the Dragon banner, and by his side his son-in-law, Turkil the thane of Watchet, bore the captured "Raven."

Harek the scald looked at it once, and then went to its heavy folds, and scanned carefully the runes that were thereon.

"Ho, comrades!" he cried joyfully, "here is a winning that will be sung of long after our names are forgotten. This is the magic Raven that was wrought with wizardry and spells by the daughters of Ragnar Lodbrok. Ill will this news fall on Danish ears from end to end of England. This is worth two victories."

"I have seen it many times before," said Heregar; "nor is this the only time that I have tried to win it. But never before have I seen it hanging motionless as it hung today. There seems to be somewhat in the tale they tell of its flapping foreboding victory."

"Ay," said Odda. "Today they despised us, and bore it not forward; therefore it flapped not, seeing that there was no wind where it hung."

The ealdorman called us together then, and pointed to the Danes who were ma.s.sed beyond the river.

"Now it is time for us to go. We have won a good fight, and some of us are yet alive. It will not be well to lose all by biding here to be slain to the last man now. Shall we go to Bridgwater or to the Quantocks, and so to Taunton?"

Then Heregar said:

"To the hills; for we should be penned in Bridgwater between this force and the other. I think that while we are yonder they will not do much on this side the Parret; and men will ever gather to us."

Then we took our wounded and went back to the fort--four hundred men out of six hundred who sallied out, where we thought that none would return. But how many Danes we left on the field it is hard to say. Some say six hundred, and some more; and it may be so. Their graves are everywhere over the hill where they fell. When the tide rose we were gone; and Hubba's men sought the body of their chief, and raised a mound over it. But they had no mind to stay on our side of the river, and they went to the Polden Hills, and laid the land waste far and wide, even to holy Glas...o...b..ry, until they joined Guthrum's force at Edington.

Now one may know in what wise Etheldreda the brave shield maiden met us, as we came back from that hard-won field, with words of praise and thanks. But Thora stood not with her as we pa.s.sed through the fort gates, where she waited on the rampart with the Lady Alswythe. Nor had she watched the fight at all, being torn with sorrow and fear alike.

I found her presently, while the men made litters whereon to bear our wounded to safety, having cleansed the stains of war from my armour. King Harald's mail had kept me from wound worth notice--though, indeed, I hardly know how it was that I was unhurt thus. Kolgrim would not use his arm for many days, and Harek was gashed in arm and thigh also.

When Osmund heard my tread, he started up from where he sat beside Thora, looking away towards the hills to which we were going, and greeted me warmly.

"It was a good fight, Ra.n.a.ld, and well won," he said.

Then Thora turned slowly, and looked at me fearfully, as if she feared me. I was grieved, and would have gone away; but she drew nearer, and the fear went from her eyes when she saw that I was safe, knowing little of what I had been through. And at last she smiled faintly, saying: