Raven: Blood Eye (43 page)

Cynethryth turned to look at me properly for the first time since we had found her, or rather since she had found us. I thought of the black-haired Welsh girl I had raped and my chest hammered with guilt. Cynethryth's face was tight, her eyes full of indecision, and I could tell she was struggling to find the words. 'My father means to betray you, Raven. All of you.' She looked at Penda. 'He has taken the gospel book of Saint Jerome and means to cross the sea a few days from now.'

'And the remaining hoard he owes me?' Sigurd boomed, water from the Wye dripping from his golden beard. Cynethryth ignored him, searching her brother's face. 'Well, girl?' Sigurd said. 'Has the ealdorman left me what he owes?'

'Are your ears full of duckweed, heathen?' Cynethryth snapped. 'He means to cheat you. He has the book and he will sell it. Without it there
is
no money. Certainly not what he promised to pay you, anyway.' Sigurd cursed and Cynethryth turned back to Weohstan. 'The book has blinded him, brother. It has stolen his judgement. He believes it will make him richer than any king in England.'

'These men saved my life,' Weohstan said, but his face betrayed that he was all too aware why Ealdred would not want to leave vengeance-thirsty Norsemen in the heart of Wessex.

'We kept our word, Cynethryth,' I said. 'Many men died for it.' The Norsemen began cursing and shouting as Olaf roughly translated Cynethryth's words, whilst the Wessexmen glanced around nervously, their hands finding their sword grips as though they expected to be cut down where they stood for their lord's betrayal.

'I rode through the night to warn you,' Cynethryth said to me. Her face was pale and drawn and her eyes were full of the pain of a daughter betraying her father. 'You don't have much time.'

'The ealdorman won't get far,' I said, my blood simmering as the truth sank in.

'I'll have his head,' Sigurd growled in Norse and his men declared their own murderous intentions regarding Ealdred.

'Listen to me, Raven,' Cynethryth pleaded, shaking her head, and I saw fresh tears moisten her eyes. 'He has sent men to kill you. I came as soon as I learned of it. Why do you think he gave Sigurd half the silver? Because he knows he will have it back soon enough. They're coming, Raven. You have to get away. They're coming now!'

'But we have Weohstan,' I said. Sigurd was frowning at the girl as though wondering what else she would say to ruin his day. 'And what about these men?' I asked, pointing at Penda and the last remaining Wessexmen.

She shrugged wearily. 'I don't think my father ever believed you would succeed, Raven.' She paused for a moment, then took her brother's hands in her own. 'Or even that Weohstan was alive. Consider the men he sent with you.' She glanced at Penda, though for shame of her father could not hold his eye. 'Only a few were his household men.' Penda spat at this, though he must have recognized the truth when he heard it. Ealdred had not wanted to waste his best warriors on a fool's mission.
Apprentices, sons, and women becoming millers,
smiths and fletchers,
I thought to myself. 'Others are on their way to make sure Sigurd never returns to Wessex,' Cynethryth went on. 'The priests assured our father that this was God's will. They said the land must be cleansed of the filth of the heathens.'

Sigurd grimaced. 'The dogs still piss up trees and life goes on, Raven,' he said. Then he shook his great ash spear. 'And we go to earn our reputation.'

'Kill the Englishmen, Sigurd!' Asgot shrieked in Norse, jabbing his spear towards one of them. The Wessexmen stepped away from the Norsemen and Penda glared at Sigurd, the challenge clear in his fierce eyes.

'These men have been honourable, Asgot,' I said, fixing him with my blood-eye. 'Would you kill everything that breathed that was not a Norseman?'

'You know I would, Raven,' the old godi snarled, revealing black teeth.

'We go to Wessex,' Sigurd said, looking first to Olaf, then to
Serpent
's steersman Knut. Both men nodded. 'We go to Wessex and we get to our ships before the English dog burns them.'

'He won't burn the ships, lord,' I said in English, gripping the sword's hilt at my waist and glancing at Weohstan. 'He'll take them. What better vessels does he have to cross the sea?'

'Raven's right,' Weohstan said, looking at Cynethryth as he spoke. 'My father has a couple of broad trading ships, but nothing to be proud of. Nothing that would turn the head of a high lord or king.'

So, full of flaming fury, we used our axes to cut through King Offa's wall, for Cynethryth had forded the Wye downriver where there was no wall and she would not now leave her mare behind. Then we turned south into the Hwicce forest and whatever trap the treacherous ealdorman of Wessex had set for us.

'They're close,' Bjarni warned some time later. He turned to Asgot who had his ear pressed against the trunk of a storm-cleaved oak.

'He's right, Sigurd,' the godi muttered. 'It won't be long now.' Sigurd nodded grimly and kissed the iron rim of his round war shield. He had put the last six Wessexmen within the belly of the Wolfpack so that his men could take them down if necessary. Asgot and Olaf had pleaded with Sigurd to disarm the English, but Sigurd had said no. Nor had he allowed Penda to unfurl Ealdorman Ealdred's leaping stag banner. His own red wolf's head banner hung limply on Hakon's spear.

'These English may yet have a part to play in this,' Sigurd muttered to Olaf, gripping the older man's shoulder reassuringly. 'We'll let them keep their swords within reach for now.'

We marched quietly, brynjas and helmets secure and spears and shields ready, each of us lost within our own preparations for battle. Because we did not know the land and because Sigurd did not trust the English enough to seek their advice, we sprang the trap. A volley of arrows poured out from a copse of elder and sweet-briar and Hakon went down, a shaft jutting from his face. Because he had held Sigurd's banner at the war band's heart, those around him were hit worst. Wessexmen were filled with Wessex arrows as the Wolfpack formed a circle, presenting their painted war shields to an unseen enemy. Arrows whipped through the trees, snapping against bright leaves to thud into limewood and glance off mail. Penda's men must have wanted to yell to their countrymen, but they knew the warriors beside them would cut them down if they did. As for Penda himself, blood was in the air and the fight was on and that was all that mattered.

Men grunted as arrows struck them, yet the forest was strangely calm. An arrow skimmed off my shield's rim and I cursed under my breath. It was not so long ago that I spent whole days in just such a place, choosing and felling trees with old Ealhstan's axe. Now the tool in my hand was for felling men. Now my stomach was ice cold with the fear of mutilation.

'Keep those shields up, lads,' I heard myself say, but who was I to give advice to these warriors? They knew their work and endured the assault patiently, waiting for the chance to face their enemies. Even the Wessexmen cursed behind their shields, seething under the deadly rain, and I wondered if they would take their swords to their countrymen if they got the chance. It was possible if their blood was up, and perhaps that was what Sigurd had meant when he said they still had a part to play. The arrows came sporadically for a while, then stopped altogether.

'We'd be downing mead with the All-Father now if it weren't for this mail,' Bjarni said, pulling a broken arrow from the rings of his brynja. Even so, several Norsemen and all but three of the Wessexmen were down, shafts jutting from their bodies. Then the forest came alive with shouts, animalistic shrieks that cut through the foliage to disorientate and inspire terror, and I tensed, glancing at the men around me. On my left was Bjarni, on my right Penda. Then the English came, bursting through the trees. They threw their spears and ran at us, hitting the shieldwall from every side with axes and swords and shield bosses. Penda rammed his sword through a man's neck, his choice made. It was fight or die now.

A woman's scream cut through the din like an eagle's cry and I risked a glance behind to see Cynethryth standing over Weohstan, who was down. She was covered in bright blood. I screamed a curse at the English and battered a man's shield, my sword splitting it down the middle. I struck it again and again, then Bjarni rammed his spear into the man's cheek so that it tore out through the other side. Someone yanked the dead man back and another Englishman took his place. I began the shoving match that would end with one of us being torn apart. It is strange how even in the midst of a fight warriors will talk. Sometimes there is only the silence of individual struggles, but not always. Penda and I leant into our shields, trying to force the English back so that we could use our swords on them.

'See the bastard back there . . . amongst the bushes?' he asked through teeth gritted in effort. The veins in his neck bulged like cords beneath the skin.

'Can't look right now, Penda,' I growled, tucking my head into my chest as a spear blade came over my shield's rim.

'It's Mauger,' he spat. 'Ealdred's pet. You know him, don't you?'

'I know him,' I said, 'and I'm going to kill the bastard if I get out of this.'

'He's mine, lad,' Penda snarled.

I heard Sigurd encouraging those around him and hurling insults at the English. He called for the Wolfpack to make their enemies pay a great blood-price for their treachery and when we were even harder pressed he called the names of men's wives and women back home in Norway, rousing them to great feats for their sakes. The Norsemen fought like demons and their jarl would have expected nothing less, for they were no ordinary war band. These were the best warriors ever to cross the angry grey sea, each one chosen by Sigurd for his skill and bravery and love of bloody glory.

The man to Bjarni's left fell back, blood spurting from the vein in his neck. I stamped on a spear jabbing at my shins, and snapped off the blade.

'Urchin! Urchin!' Sigurd roared and several men stepped back from the wall, the others closing the gaps before the enemy could exploit them. The Urchin contracted the circle, allowing spearmen to form an inner defensive ring, thrusting their spears over their comrades' shoulders into English faces. Sigurd's voice boomed out and his men made their slaughter.

'He knows how to fight,' Penda growled as a spear ripped into the man he was heaving against. The air was thick with sweat and men's breath and the first stench of bowels opening in death came to my nose. My own guts had turned to liquid and I tasted fear on my tongue. Somewhere behind me was Cynethryth, whilst in front were men fighting for their lives because she had warned us of their treachery. It was not hard to imagine what they would do to the girl if we lost.

A war horn sounded above the clash of arms and shouts, and in good order the English trudged backwards, their shields overlapping as they retreated into elder and sweetbriar, the foliage half swallowing them. There they waited, a spear's throw away, hurling insults and threats, and I gasped for breath, dragging warm air into stinging lungs. My heart thumped in my chest like a sword on a shield. I feared it would burst.

'How old are you, Raven?' Penda asked, wiping sweat from his eyes.

'I don't know,' I replied. 'Sixteen, seventeen maybe.'

'You're a natural bloody killer, lad,' he said with a malicious grin. Sweat dripped from the scar on his hairless chin. 'Whoever named you saw corpses in that red eye of yours.'

'I got the name from Sigurd,' I said, checking my sword for damage. There was a deep notch a finger's length from the iron guard and I whispered a prayer to Völund god of the forge that the blade would not break before the fight was decided.

'It's a good name,' Penda said, kicking a body at his feet to see if the man was alive. He was not.

I looked around. Incredibly, old Asgot stood breathless but unharmed, and I wondered what spirits protected the old godi when younger, stronger men lay dead. Hakon, who had carried Sigurd's banner, was dead, his lifeblood congealing around the arrows in his face and neck. Thormod and young Thorolf were dead. Kon, who was always complaining, lay writhing as Olaf knelt beside him, trying to push the man's slippery guts back through the gash above his crotch. The man's mail had been useless against the axe, and Olaf must have known his efforts were in vain, but he tried anyway. Five of the Wessexmen lay dead or dying, leaving only Penda who cursed the English now for killing their own people. He hurled insults at them, calling them shit-eaters and sons of whores, and challenged Mauger to step into the open to look upon the Wessexmen he had had killed. But when Mauger did step forward, his huge frame covered in dark mail and his hand gripping a great war spear, it was not to mourn dead Englishmen.