4

I do as Oswy says, trying to catch sight of what’s happening at the front of the line of attack. But it’s impossible. If I don’t keep my eyes on where I’m going, I’ll fall to the ground and, no doubt, injure myself.

‘Stay in position,’ I’m cautioned by a Mercian. His face is covered in sweat.

I note that Frithwine and Garwulf have finally done the same. Garwulf has bound a strip of linen around his wound, but he’s not staunched the blood. I open my mouth to tell him, but the shield wall rushes onwards again. I hurry to keep up. I don’t want to lose my place.

The cry of ‘For Mercia’ thunders through the air. I run, eyes half on where I’m going and half on what I run over. The snapped stalks are darkened with blood, the staring eyes of marbled men arresting my gaze, even as I stoop to check they’re dead. A Mercian warrior in front of me stumbles and trips.

I stab down into the chest of the Wessex warrior who thinks to take a kill before his last breath. His right hand has been severed, blood cascading from it to drown the churned earth. But he still has his left hand. With it, the foeman reaches for the feet of the Mercians. More than one stunned man is trying to shake the shock of a fall from his body.

‘Wessex scum,’ my comrade repeats.

I agree with him, but still, he wears no man’s blood. He’s good at talking but has done little of note.

Onwards we go, the steps almost a running stride. For a moment, I’m confused. Have the Mercians won the battle already? Only then, the line comes to a juddering halt. I don’t quite catch the cry of outrage, but my comrade must.

‘They’ve got a second bloody line,’ he complains, disgust in the rigid set of his jaw, which is about all I can see beneath his iron helm.

I risk looking behind me. The Mercians have travelled almost the distance of the sloping wheat field, the wide swathe of destruction attesting to that. The field is filled with nearly as many broken bodies as snapped stems. I don’t see King Wiglaf or the two battle-shy ealdormen.

And then I do, more by the fluttering of the eagle battle standard than anything else. The king still observes, but with only one ealdorman at his side, no doubt Sigered. Four of the king’s warriors are tasked with guarding his person, beside the bannerman who holds the eagle battle standard of Mercia. Where the other ealdorman has gone, I don’t know. I don’t have time to consider it either.

‘Brace.’ I sense the men in front of me stiffen, preparing to hold in place for as long as they must.

The shields of the second row of warriors catch the sun on their rims, almost blinding me, where they hold them in place over the heads of the first row of warriors.

Here and there, the neat lines have become compacted. There aren’t as many men as when we started. Yet, I’m still at the back.

I bend and rub my bloodied gloves through some stray green grasses, keen to remove the slickness there. I swallow. My mouth is dry, my lips tingling with lack of water. I couldn’t piss myself, even if my life depended on it. I wish I’d drunk more today. It’s uncomfortable now that I’m aware of just how thirsty I am.

I feel the two shield walls clash. The repercussions are even louder now I’m closer. I think the Wessex warriors have deceived us. A Wessex reserve must have added their strength to the attack, but there are no more Mercians to come. This is all King Wiglaf can bring to the slaughter field. Too many have lost their lives in the battles the Mercian kings have fought in recent years. A pity we’ve not killed all the Wessex warriors before encountering this second shield wall.

‘Hold.’ I think it’s Ealdorman Ælfstan who shouts the command, but his voice is muffled by the clamour of battle.

Others take up the cry. I hear the distinctive thud of hooves over the disturbed ground. Has King Wiglaf finally come to join the fray? Not that I get time to find out.

While Ealdorman Ælfstan might direct the shield wall to hold, it bucks and twists. At points, I can see, to my left, where it’s forced backwards, or where the centre moves forwards. At other times, I can see nothing but the man to my left and Garwulf to my right. I can do little but add my weight, as slight as it is, to the backs of the men before me.

We trample over the dead and dying, and some of them are Mercians, and too few are Wessex warriors. But I feel as though the ground we travel over sags downwards. We’re on bare soil. Maybe the earth wasn’t planted this year, or, perhaps, it’s already been harvested, even the remaining stalks turned over to make the soil rich for the next crop.

‘We’re going downhill,’ the man to my left bellows. His eyes are wild behind his helm, and still no mark of violence is on his body.

I spit aside a hair from my dry mouth, wishing there was more spittle with which to do so, and notice another warrior on the ground. This man has his head pressed into the mud, a seax protruding from between his shoulder blades. An enemy, then, I assume.

When I focus again on what’s happening, I gasp. For the first time, between the rows of men before me, I see the enemy shields, black wyvern on a white background. I can even distinguish the helmed heads of those who think to kill my fellow Mercians. For a heartbeat, I meet cold eyes. Then the gap is closed once more, as the row of Mercians surges onwards.

The men at the front have fallen. Only two lines of warriors remain. Cries and feeble moans reach my ears. As much as I’d like to help these warriors, drag them to safety, I can’t. I’m that second line. I discard my shield and force the one in place, up and over the head of the man on the front line.

I don’t know what’s happened. Why has the shield wall suddenly failed so catastrophically? My thoughts turn to Wulfheard and Ealdorman Ælfstan. Then there’s a steadying hand on my back.

‘Hold the shield wall.’ I know the voice and turn shocked eyes to greet the familiar face of King Wiglaf. ‘The bastards know I’m here. They’ve redoubled their attempts to kill me.’

Given what my uncle said about Wiglaf the last time he encountered the Wessex warriors beside the River Thames, I expect the king to show fear, to quiver with it, maybe even to run away. But Wiglaf holds his place, his standard-bearer just behind me, indicating to those who can see it, Mercians or Wessex warriors, that King Wiglaf has taken his position and will fight with his men, just as they fight for him.

‘Stand firm,’ Wiglaf instructs, his words stiffening the resolve of others close by, of Frithwine and Garwulf to my right, the one with his bashed helm and the other limping from injuries gained falling over, but who’s been urged back to the attack, no doubt by the king.

My arms begin to ache as I endeavour to hold the shield above my head in place, bucking and swaying with the motion of the clash, a constant motion of small steps forwards and back. I’ll wear a dip in the soil.

Now I can witness much more than just the emotionless eyes of my enemy. I can see where seaxes thrust through gaps in the rounded shields, where spears are thrown from behind the Wessex line. Where men bleed and shriek, weep and wail, and yet stand firm all the same, even as blood drips into byrnies and onto the churned earth.

‘Brace.’ Ealdorman Ælfstan’s voice is too loud. I’m startled to find the ealdorman only just in front of me – Wulfheard beside him. I can see where blood pools down Wulfheard’s wide neck to disappear inside his byrnie. I can’t determine the nature of his wound. I hope it’s not his blood.

Swords and seaxes flash between the shields. Something heavy hits the shield I hold and I stagger beneath the weight.

‘Keep it up,’ I’m commanded.

I turn, meet my comrade’s startled look, and notice the strain on his face. Whatever has been thrown, it’s bloody heavy.

I try tipping the shield forwards standing on my tiptoes and then backwards, bending my elbows, to dislodge the weight. But it does nothing.

‘What is it?’ I gasp between tight lips. If there were someone behind me, perhaps they could tell me, but King Wiglaf has moved aside, taking his warriors and bannerman with him. I can hear the king emboldening his warriors from elsewhere, the flash of his banner catching the corner of my vision, sweat dripping into my eyes from beneath my helm. My mouth’s so dry, I think to lick the sweat, but it’ll only make me thirstier in the end.

‘I don’t know,’ the man grunts.

I wish I knew his name. If we’re to stand together, fight together and perhaps die together, we should know one another.

Abruptly, the weight disappears, my arms thrusting higher in the air, almost too high. Where before I struggled to keep the shield over the man with the black curls whose back I stand at, now there’s too much sky visible, the clouds low, promising rain, and into that small gap, a long spear falls.

Every instinct in my body tells me to step back, to protect myself, but if I do that, I’ll be killing another. Instead, I hold my ground, barely breathing as the top-heavy projectile clatters between us, just missing my left foot as it stands proud in the brown earth.

‘Bloody bollocks,’ I exclaim. The spear risks injuring both of us even now if I don’t move it, but to do so, I need to release my grip on the shield. And, at that moment, the shield wall swells once more.

I skip around the still-vibrating wooden pole. But I pause. If I leave it, someone else might injure themselves on it. Hastily, I balance the shield with one hand looped through the leather strap, as I grip the spear with my left. Only the damn thing is firmly wedged, stuck, spear downwards, the shaft disappearing into the dark earth. If that had struck me or a fellow Mercian, we’d be dead.

‘Leave it,’ a voice huffs at me.

I want to, but I know this battle is far from won. Instead, I lift my leg, kick at the wooden shaft with all my strength, and it shatters.

‘Bugger.’ That wasn’t what I wanted to do. If anything, I’ve made it worse. The broken shaft flies through the air, hitting the back of the man I’m supposed to be protecting. He turns panicked eyes my way. I rush to close the gap between us. I hope someone will move the remnants of the spear, but I can’t see that anyone will.

Perhaps they don’t need to do so, after all. The shield wall keeps advancing, passing over the dead and dying. I quickly realise that more and more of them are Wessex warriors, the black and white of their emblem easy to pick out on byrnies, tunics and sleeves now I know where to seek it.

‘Hold.’ The single word issues from the rear. Once more, King Wiglaf thinks to direct the battle.

I realise why. The centre of the shield wall has got ahead of itself. It moves too quickly, too fast. We’re at the point where we can see the Wessex warriors as they battle against the Mercians to the left and the right, under the commands of Ealdormen Tidwulf and Beornoth. If this continues, the shield wall will disintegrate into three pitched battles. I’ll be on the wrong side of it. The Mercians under Ealdorman Ælfstan, in their eagerness, risk being lost to the Wessex warriors if only one of their commanders is quick-witted enough to change tactics.

‘Move back.’ Ealdorman Ælfstan’s words thrum with authority, but his fellow warriors are unable to obey them. They’re too focused on beating their foemen because it seems that they can’t but win now. The eyes of the front row of the shield wall focus only on their enemy. They don’t know what I’ve realised.

The orders of Ealdorman Beornoth can be heard, urging the men under his command on, trying to get them to follow the successes of the centre of the line of Mercian shields. Only there’s no more time for me to think. The man before me grows still, his movements arrested, before abruptly turning and falling at the same time. Blood gushes from a slit throat, hands clawing at it, turning black with the rapid flow, fear and terror in his brown eyes.

‘Fill the bloody gap,’ a warrior from the front row implores me in a breathless voice.

I tremble. Swallow, try and spit. I take a breath, inhale more than just air, and step over the bucking body of the dying Mercian.

‘Hold firm,’ I’m ordered.

I slip my hands through the orphaned shield, feeling the slick sweat of another on the leather cord even through my gloves. The smell is intense. I try to hold my stance, as Ealdorman Ælfstan has advised me to do, but my right foot slips on something foul-smelling and sticky. I slide and catch myself, the shield in front of me crashing to the floor so that I’m faced with the black and white shield of my enemy. Behind the shield, I can see smoke billowing into the sky. I can hear the shrieks of the Wessex injured, and then my shield is back in place.

‘Hold firm,’ my right-hand shield brother urges me.

I can feel nothing but the air above my helm. There’s no one to protect my head, not in the battle line.

Another spear sneaks between my shield and the man to my right, while another waves over my head. They mean to skewer me. I’m glad then that I have no water with which to piss myself.

I grip my seax tightly, thoughts suddenly clear. I need to batter aside the spear that comes at me from in front. And I need to pull down on the one that comes from above, have it slip from the hand of the man who thinks to hold it. His hold will be poor from so far away.

With my seax, I thrust upwards. I can’t see the man’s hand, but it must be there, somewhere. Without the shield to protect my head, the dull afternoon sun glints in my eyes, temporarily blinding me. When I can see once more, the blackened tip of the spear is even closer. I duck aside and into the path of the spear that comes at me from in front. The shield wall warps once more, and I’m moving backwards, the Wessex warriors finding a means of advancing against us.

‘Back,’ Ealdorman Ælfstan directs curtly. His words are shockingly easy to hear.

The retreat knocks the head-high spear aside, the Wessex warrior perhaps stumbling or simply failing to keep up with the quick advance. That leaves me with only one weapon to counter while trying to stay upright. There’s a dead man behind me. There’s blood and piss and shit on the ground that can trip me. I can’t even risk looking to ensure I keep clear of it all.

The second man to my left abruptly disappears from view, the shield of our enemy pressing tightly into our shield wall. I feel it in the strain on my hands, hear it in the grunts of the warrior directly next to me. And then the Mercian is once more on his feet, hands through the leather strap.

‘Back again,’ the ealdorman demands, his words rich with authority.

With another step, the spear before me jabs close to my eye. It makes a soft dinging noise as it hits my helm. I recoil in horror. Without thought, my seax jabs upwards, following the line of the spear, seeking the hand that wields it. Through the gap between my shield and the warrior to my right, it slides, and then beneath its questing edge, I detect something solid but not metal. With all my strength, I stab, and then jab, and then stab again. The movement is unnatural, my enemy too far away, but it’s my best chance.

I hear a gurgling sound, something wet dripping to the ground as though it’s started raining, and the shield wall advances one step. I’m standing on the man who thought to kill me. His eyes are wild with pain, his lower right arm a blooming mass of burgundy, even the white of bone visible through his jagged sleeve. I kick him, hard, in the bollocks, and he bucks upwards, unable to prevent the recoil, and dies on my blade.

Another of the bastard Wessex warriors is dead. Now, I need to kill those who still fight against Mercia’s might.