Sword of Kings

Three of the ships bore no symbols on their sails, though the craft furthest west, closest to the unseen Northumbrian coast, showed a coiled snake, which, like our wolf, was probably woven from wool. The huge slab of cloth was reinforced with rope that made a diamond pattern through which the black snake showed. I could see the water shattering white at her bow.

Egil had turned Banamaðr so, instead of feigning a clumsy flight west towards the harbours of the Northumbrian coast, he was now sailing south next to Spearhafoc. Like me he had hoisted his sail, his crew just sheeting it home as we came abreast of him. I cupped my hands and shouted across the churning water. ‘I’m aiming for the second one!’ I pointed to the ship nearest the snake-sailed vessel. Egil nodded to show he had heard. ‘But I’m going to attack the snake one!’ I pointed again. ‘You too!’

‘Me too!’ he called back. He was grinning, his fair hair streaming from beneath his helmet’s rim.

The enemy had spread into a line so that any two of their ships could close on one of ours. If that notion had worked they could board us from both sides at once and the sword-work would be brief, bitter, and bloody. I let them think that plan would succeed by heading slightly off the wind towards the second ship from the west and saw the other two larger ships slightly change their direction so that they were headed towards the place where they thought we would meet their line. They were still spread out, at least four or five ships’ lengths between each, but their line was shrinking. The smaller ship, slower than the others, lagged further behind.

Egil’s ship, slower than mine because she was shorter, had fallen behind, and I ordered the steerboard sheet to be loosened to slow Spearhafoc, then turned and waved to Egil, pointing to my steerboard side, indicating he should come up on that flank. He understood, and slowly the Banamaðr crept up to my right. We would go into battle together, but not where the enemy hoped.

‘Christ!’ Finan swore. ‘That big bastard has a lot of men!’

‘Which big bastard?’

‘The one in the centre. Seventy men? Eighty?’

‘How many on the snake bastard?’

‘Maybe forty, fifty?’

‘Enough to frighten a merchantman,’ I said.

‘They don’t seem frightened of us,’ he said drily. The three larger ships were still coursing towards us, confident that they outnumbered us. ‘Be careful of that big bastard,’ Finan said, pointing to the middle ship, the one with the larger crew.

I gazed at the ship, which had a lime-washed cross mounted high on its prow. ‘Doesn’t matter how many they have,’ I said, ‘they reckon we only have forty men.’

‘They do?’ he seemed amused by my confidence.

‘They tortured Haggar. What could he tell them? They’d have asked how often our ships go to sea and how many men crewed them. What would he have said?’

‘That you keep two warships in the harbour, that Spearhafoc is the bigger one, and usually has a crew of forty, but sometimes not so many.’

‘Exactly.’

‘And that usually it’s Berg who takes her to sea.’

Berg was Egil’s youngest brother, and I had saved his life on a Welsh beach many years before and, ever since, he had served me well and faithfully. Berg had been disappointed to be left behind on this voyage, but with Finan and me at sea, he was the best man to command Bebbanburg’s remaining garrison. I would usually have left my son in charge, but he was in the central hills of Northumbria to settle a dispute between two of my tenants.

‘They think we’re about forty men,’ I said, ‘and they’ll reckon Banamaðr at about thirty.’ I laughed, then touched the hilt of Serpent-Breath, my sword, before shouting across to Egil. ‘Turn now!’ I heaved the steering-oar to windward and Spearhafoc dipped her prow as she slewed around. ‘Tighten the sail!’ I shouted. The trap was sprung, and now the snake would discover how the wolf and the eagle fought.

I had tightened Spearhafoc’s sail to quicken her again. She was faster than the enemy’s ships. I could see the weed thick on the snake-ship’s bottom whenever she reared on a wave. She was slow. We dried our ships out on a falling tide and scraped their lower hulls clean, which kept us fast. I turned back towards Banamaðr. ‘I plan to sink the bastard,’ I shouted, ‘then go east after the second one!’

Egil waved, and I assumed he had heard me. Not that it mattered, Spearhafoc was pulling ahead, she was as close to the wind as I dared take her, but she was carving her swift path, she was breaking the sea white at her cutwater. She was as deadly as her name now, and Egil would realise soon enough what I planned.

‘You’re going to ram her?’ Finan asked.

‘If I can, and I want you in the prow. If I don’t hit her right you’ll need to get aboard her and kill their helmsman. Then ditch their steering-oar.’

Finan went forward, shouting at men to follow him. We were closing on the snake-ship now, near enough to see a group of men in her bow and see the spears they carried. Their helmets reflected the light. One clung to the forestay, another hefted his spear. There was a group of archers in the belly of the boat, arrows already on their strings. ‘Beornoth!’ I shouted, ‘Folcbald! Come here! Bring your shields!’ Beornoth was a stolid, reliable man, a Saxon, while Folcbald was an enormous Frisian, one of my strongest warriors. ‘You’re to protect me,’ I said. ‘You see those archers? They’ll aim for me.’

The helmsman was in the most vulnerable place on a ship. Most of my men were crouched in Spearhafoc’s belly behind raised shields, Finan had gone to the bow where he and six men also made a barrier of shields, but I had to stand at the steering-oar. The arrows would come soon, we were seething through the green seas and were close enough that I could see the nail heads on the snake-ship’s hull. I glanced to my left. The other three enemy ships had seen where we were going and had turned to help, but that turn meant they were now heading directly into the wind and their sails were flattening against the masts. Men were scrambling to lower the sails and to thrust oars through their holes, but they were slow and their ships were being blown backwards and pitching hard in the rising seas.

‘Now!’ Beornoth growled and raised his shield. He had seen the archers loose their arrows.

A half-dozen arrows thumped into the sail, others flickered past to plunge into the sea. I could hear the waves roaring, the wind’s song through the rigging, and then I shoved the steering blade hard, putting all my strength into the oar’s great loom, and I saw the snake-ship turning towards us, which is what her helmsman should have done moments before, but now it was too late. We were close, and closing fast. ‘Spears!’ Finan shouted the warning from the prow.

‘Brace!’ I bellowed. An arrow glanced off the iron rim at the top of Folcbald’s shield, a spear-blade scarred the deck at my feet, then Spearhafoc heeled into the turn and a gust of wind buried her rail. I staggered, an arrow smacked hard into the sternpost, then Spearhafoc recovered, her sail protesting as we turned into the wind, water streaming from her scuppers, and above the sounds of the sea and the howl of the wind I heard the shouts of alarm from the enemy.

‘Hold hard!’ I shouted at my crew.

And we struck.

We lurched violently forward as we jarred to a stop. There was a huge splintering sound, bellows of fright, a churning of water, curses. The backstay beside me tautened frighteningly and, for an instant, I thought our mast would collapse across the bows, but the twisted sealhide held, even though it vibrated like a plucked harp string. Beornoth and Folcbald both fell. Spearhafoc had ridden up on the snake-ship’s hull and now settled back with a grinding noise. We had turned into the wind to ram the enemy and I had worried that we would lose way and so strike her less hard than if we had rammed her downwind, but Spearhafoc’s weight and speed had been enough to shatter the snake-ship’s hull. Our sail was now pressed against the mast and was pushing us back, though it seemed as if our bow was tangled with the enemy’s hull because the ships stayed together and Spearhafoc slewed slowly around to larboard and, to my alarm, she began to go down at the prow. Then I heard a sharp crack and Spearhafoc quivered, there was a ripping sound, and she suddenly righted. Her prow had been caught by the broken strakes of the snake-ship’s hull, but she had broken free.

The snake-ship was sinking. We had struck her with our prow, the strongest part of Spearhafoc’s hull, and we had splintered her low freeboard as easily as cracking an egg. Water was flowing in, she was tilting, and her bilge, which was crammed with ballast stones, was flooding fast. Her crew, dressed in mail, was doomed, except for those few who had managed to cling to our ship, and meanwhile we were being blown backwards towards the other enemy boats, who, their oars at last in the water, were straining to reach us. We were wallowing. I bellowed at men to haul in the larboard sheet of the sail and loosen the steerboard sheet. To my right the snake-ship was on her side in a maelstrom of white water, surrounded by flotsam, and then she vanished, the last sight of her a small triangular banner at the peak of her canted mast.

I thrust the steering-oar over, praying that Spearhafoc would gain enough way to make the oar’s big blade bite, but she was still sluggish. Our prisoners, there were five of them, had been hauled inboard, and Finan had men stripping them of mail, helmets, and sword belts. ‘Watch behind, lord!’ Folcbald said, sounding alarmed.

The nearest enemy ship, the vessel with the lime-washed cross on her high prow, was closing on us. She was as large as Spearhafoc and looked much heavier. Her crew was bigger than the snake-ship’s doomed crew, but her commander had only ordered twenty-four men to the oars, a dozen on each side, because he wanted the rest ready to leap aboard Spearhafoc. There were helmeted warriors in the bows and more crammed into her waist. At least seventy of them, I thought, maybe more. The first arrows flew, and most went high to slap into our sail, but one whipped close beside me. I instinctively made sure Serpent-Breath was at my side and shouted for Roric.

‘Lord?’ he called back.

‘Have my shield ready!’ The cross-prowed ship was lumbering towards us, and we were being wind-driven towards her. She was not coming fast because she was rowing into the wind, she was heavy, and she had too few oarsmen, so it was doubtful that she could sink us as we had sunk the snake-ship, but the height of her prow would let her warriors leap down into our wide belly.

Then Banamaðr suddenly crossed our bows. She was running before the wind and I saw Egil thrust his steering-oar to turn towards the cross-prowed ship. The helmsman of that ship saw the Norseman coming and, even though Banamaðr was half his size, he must have feared being rammed because he shouted at his larboard oarsmen to back water and so slewed to meet Egil’s threat bows on. He was close to us now, so close! I shoved the steering-oar, but still it would not bite, which meant Spearhafoc was dead in the water and still being wind-driven towards the enemy. I let go of the oar’s loom and took my shield from Roric. ‘Get ready!’ I shouted. I drew Wasp-Sting, my seax, and the short blade hissed from the fleece-lined scabbard. Broken waves slopped between our ships. The enemy ship had turned towards Egil and would now crash broadside into us, and her crew, armed and mailed, was standing ready to leap. I saw a half-dozen archers raise their bows, then there was sudden chaos in the belly of the cross-prowed ship as Banamaðr slid down her larboard side to shatter the oars. The oar looms were driven hard into the bellies of the rowers, the ship seemed to shiver, the archers staggered and their arrows flew wild, Egil loosed his sail to fly free in the wind as he turned to slide his bows against the enemy’s stern. He had men with long-bearded axes ready to grapple the enemy, Banamaðr’s bows glanced on the enemy’s stern quarter, both ships lurched, the axes fell to draw the two hulls together and I saw the first screaming Norsemen leap onto the cross-prowed ship’s stern.

Then we hit. We crashed into the enemy’s steerboard oars first, which cracked and splintered, but also held her off for a moment. One huge man, his mouth open as he yelled, leaped at Spearhafoc, but his own ship lurched as he jumped and his bellow of defiance turned into a desperate shout as he fell between the ships. He flailed as he tried to grab our rail, but one of my men kicked his hands and he vanished, dragged down by his armour. The wind drove our stern against the enemy and I jumped onto her steering platform, followed by Folcbald and Beornoth. Egil’s savage Norsemen had already killed the helmsman and were now fighting in the belly of the boat, and I was shouting at men to follow me. I jumped down from the steering platform, and a boy, no more than a child, screamed in terror. I kicked him under a rower’s bench and snarled at him to stay there.

‘Another bastard coming!’ Oswi, who had once been my servant and had become an eager, vicious fighter, shouted from Spearhafoc, and I saw the last of the enemy’s larger ships was coming to the rescue of the boat we had boarded. Thorolf, Egil’s brother, had stayed aboard Banamaðr with just three men, and they now loosed their ship and let the wind carry her out of the approaching boat’s way. More of my men were leaping aboard to join me, but there was little room for us to fight. The wide belly of the boat was crammed with warriors, the Norsemen grinding forward from bench to bench, their shield wall stretching the full width of the big ship’s waist. The enemy crew was trapped there between Egil’s ferocious attackers and Finan’s men, who had managed to reach the platform on the prow and were thrusting down with spears. Our challenge then would be to defeat the third ship, which was being rowed towards us. I climbed back onto the steering platform.

The approaching ship, like the one on which we fought, had a cross high on her prow. It was a dark cross, the wood smeared with pitch, and behind it were crammed the armed and helmeted warriors. The ship was heavy and slow. A man at the prow was shouting instructions to the helmsman and thrusting an arm northwards, and slowly the big ship turned that way and I saw the men in the prow raise their shields. They planned to board us at our stern and attack Egil’s men from behind. The rowers on the ship’s steerboard side slid their long looms from the holes and the big ship coasted slowly towards us. The rowers picked up shields and drew swords. I noted that the shields were not painted, bearing neither a cross nor any other symbol. If these men had been sent by Æthelhelm, and I was increasingly sure of that, then had clearly been ordered to disguise that truth. ‘Shield wall!’ I shouted. ‘And brace yourselves!’

There must have been a dozen men on the steering platform with me. There was no room for more, though the enemy, whose prow was higher than our stern, planned to join us. I looked through the finger-width gap between my shield and Folcbald’s and saw the great prow just feet away. A wave lifted it, then it crashed down and slammed into us, splintering the top strake, then the enemy’s dark bow grated down our stern as I staggered from the impact. I had a glimpse of a man leaping onto me, axe raised, and I lifted the shield and felt the shudder as his axe buried its blade in the willow board.

Almost any fight on shipboard is a confusion of men packed too close together. In battle even the best disciplined shield wall tends to spread as men try to make room for their weapons, but on a ship there is no space to spread. There is only the foetid breath of an enemy trying to kill you, the press of men and steel, the screams of blade-pierced victims, the raw stink of blood in the scuppers, and the crush of death on a lurching deck.

Which is why I had drawn Wasp-Sting. She is a short blade, scarce longer than my fore-arm, but there is no room to swing a long-sword in the crush of death. Except there was no crush. The ship had struck us, had broken the strake, but even as more of the enemy readied themselves to leap down at us, a heave of the sea lifted and drove their ship back. Not far, scarcely a pace on land, but the first men to leap flailed as the ships drifted apart. The axeman, his blade still buried in my shield, sprawled on the deck and Folcbald, on my right, stabbed down with his seax and the man shrieked like a child as the blade punctured mail, broke ribs and buried itself in the man’s lungs. I kicked the man’s shrieking face, stabbed Wasp-Sting into his thick beard, and saw the blood spread across the ship’s pale deck planks.

‘More coming!’ Beornoth shouted behind me. I ripped Wasp-Sting to one side, widening the bloody slash in the axeman’s throat, then raised my shield and half crouched. I saw the dark prow loom again, saw it strike our hull again, and then something heavy struck my shield. I could not see what it was, but blood was dripping from the iron rim. ‘Got him!’ Beornoth called. He was close behind me, and, like most of the second rank, was holding an ash-shafted spear that slanted towards the enemy ship’s high prow. Men who leaped on us risked being impaled on those long blades. Another heave of the waves parted the ships again, and the dying man slid from my shield as Beornoth tugged the spear-blade loose. The dying man still moved, and Wasp-Sting struck again. The deck was red now, red and slippery. Another enemy, face contorted in rage, made a giant leap, hammering his shield forward to break our line, but Beornoth heaved on me from behind and the man’s shield clashed on mine and he staggered back against the rail. He lunged his seax past my shield, his toothless mouth opened in a silent bellow of rage, but the point of his blade slid off my mail and I hammered my shield forward and the man cursed as he was forced backwards. I pushed my shield again, and he cried aloud as he fell between the ships.

The wind drove us back onto the big enemy ship. Her prow was a good three feet higher than the stern where we stood. Five men had managed to board us, and all five were dead, and now the enemy on that high prow tried to kill us by thrusting spears at us. The lunges were futile, simply banging into our shields. I could hear a man encouraging them. ‘They’re pagans! Do God’s work! Board them and slaughter them!’

But they had no belly for boarding. They had to jump down onto the waiting spears, and instead I could see men going to the waist of their ship where it would be easier to cross to us, except that Egil’s men had finished their killing and now waited for the next fight. ‘Beornoth!’ I somehow stepped back, forcing my way through the second rank. ‘Stay here,’ I told him, ‘keep those bastards busy.’ I left six men to help him, then led the rest down into the blood-spattered waist. ‘Oswi! Folcbald! We’re crossing over! All of you! Come!’

The wind and sea were turning us so that at any moment the two ships would lie side by side. The enemy waited in their ship’s belly. They had a shield wall, which told me they did not want to board us, but instead were daring us to leap aboard their ship and die on their shields. They were not shouting, they looked frightened, and a frightened enemy is already half beaten. ‘Bebbanburg!’ I bellowed, stepped onto a rower’s bench, ran, and jumped. The man who had shouted that we were pagans was still yelling. ‘Kill them! Kill them!’ He was on the prow’s high platform where a dozen men were still thrusting futile spears at Beornoth and his companions. The rest of the crew, and I doubted they numbered more than forty, were facing us in the dark ship’s belly. The man in front of me, a youngster with terrified eyes, a leather helmet and a battered shield, stepped back as I landed. ‘You want to die?’ I snarled at him. ‘Throw your shield down, boy, and live.’

Instead he raised the shield and thrust it at me. He screamed as he thrust, though he had taken no hurt. I met his shield with my own, turned mine so that his turned too, and that opened his body for Wasp-Sting’s lethal thrust that took him low in the belly. I ripped her upwards, gutting him like a fat salmon. Folcbald was to my right, Oswi to my left, and the three of us broke through the thin shield wall, stepping over dying men, slipping on blood. Then I heard Finan shout, ‘I’ve got their stern!’

A man came from my right, Folcbald tripped him, Wasp-Sting sliced across his eyes and he was still screaming as Folcbald heaved him overboard. I turned and saw that Finan and his men were on the steering platform. They were throwing the dead overboard and, for all I knew, the living as well. The enemy was now split into two groups, some at the prow, the rest between my men and Finan’s men who were being joined by Egil’s eager warriors. Egil himself, his sword, Adder, red to the hilt, was carving a path between the rowers’ benches. Men shrank from his Norse fury. ‘Throw down your shields!’ I called to the enemy. ‘Throw down your blades!’