The Last Kingdom Series Books 1–8: The Last Kingdom, The Pale Horseman, The Lords of the North, Sword Song, The Burning Land, Death of Kings, The Pagan Lord, The Empty Throne. Bernard Cornwell

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СКАЧАТЬ and Cristenlic through the tangled waters, and behind us were the Apostol and the Eftwyrd, which meant Judgment Day and was probably the best named of our fleet because she sent more than one Dane to the sea’s embrace.

      The Danes were digging, trying to deepen the treacherous channel and so float their ships, but as we came nearer they realised they would never complete such a huge task and went back to their stranded boats to fetch armour, helmets, shields and weapons. I pulled on my coat of mail, its leather lining stinking of old sweat, and I pulled on the helmet, then strapped Serpent-Breath on my back and Wasp-Sting to my waist. This was not going to be a sea-fight, but a land battle, shield wall against shield wall, a maul in the mud, and the Danes had the advantage because they could mass where we must land and they could meet us as we came off the ships, and I did not like it. I could see Leofric hated it, but Alfred was calm enough as he pulled on his helmet. ‘God is with us,’ he said.

      ‘He needs to be,’ Leofric muttered, then raised his voice to shout at the steersman. ‘Hold her there!’ It was tricky to keep Heahengel still in the swirling current, but we backed oars and she slewed around as Leofric peered at the shore. I assumed he was waiting for the other ships to catch up so that we could all land together, but he had seen a spit of muddy sand projecting from the shore and had worked out that if we beached Heahengel there then our first men off the prow would not have to face a shield wall composed of seven Viking crews. The spit was narrow, only wide enough for three or four men to stand abreast and a fight there would be between equal numbers. ‘It’s a good enough place to die, Earsling,’ he told me, and led me forward. Alfred hurried behind us. ‘Wait,’ Leofric snapped at the king so savagely that Alfred actually obeyed. ‘Put her on the spit!’ Leofric yelled back to the steersman, ‘now!’

      Ragnar was there. I could see the eagle wing on its pole, and then I saw him, looking so like his father that for a moment I thought I was a boy again.

      ‘Ready, Earsling?’ Leofric said. He had assembled his half-dozen best warriors, all of us in the prow, while behind us the bowmen readied to launch their arrows at the Danes who were hurrying towards the narrow stretch of muddy sand. Then we lurched forward as Heahengel’s bow scraped aground. ‘Now!’ Leofric shouted, and we jumped overboard into water that came up to our knees, and then we instinctively touched shields, made the wall, and I was gripping Wasp-Sting as the first Danes ran at us.

      ‘Kill them!’ Leofric shouted, and I thrust the shield forward and there was the great clash of iron boss on limewood, and an axe whirled overhead, but a man behind me caught it on his shield and I was stabbing under my shield, bringing the short sword up, but she rammed into a Danish shield. I wrenched her free, stabbed again, and felt a pain in my ankle as a blade sliced through water and boot. Blood swirled in the sea, but I was still standing, and I heaved forward, smelling the Danes, gulls screaming overhead, and more of the Danes were coming, but more of our men were joining us, some up to their waists in the tide, and the front of the battle was a shoving match now because no one had room to swing a weapon. It was a grunting, cursing shield battle, and Leofric, beside me, gave a shout and we heaved up and they stepped back a half-pace and our arrows slashed over our helmets and I slammed Wasp-Sting forward, felt her break through leather or mail, twisted her in flesh, pulled her back, pushed with the shield, kept my head down under the rim, pushed again, stabbed again, brute force, stout shield and good steel, nothing else. A man was drowning, blood streaming in the ripples from his twitching body, and I suppose we were shouting, but I never remember much about that. You remember the pushing, the smell, the snarling bearded faces, the anger, and then Cristenlic rammed her bows into the flank of the Danish line, crumpling men into the water, drowning and crushing them, and her crew jumped into the small waves with spears, swords and axes. A third boat arrived, more men landed, and I heard Alfred behind me, shouting at us to break their line, to kill them. I was ramming Wasp-Sting down at a man’s ankles, jabbing again and again, pushing with the shield, and then he stumbled and our line surged forward and he tried to stab up into my groin, but Leofric slammed his axe head down, turning the man’s face into a mask of blood and broken teeth. ‘Push!’ Leofric yelled, and we heaved at the enemy, and suddenly they were breaking away and running.

      We had not beaten them. They were not running from our swords and spears, but rather because the rising tide was floating their ships and they ran to rescue them, and we stumbled after them, or rather I stumbled because my right ankle was bleeding and hurting, and we still did not have enough men ashore to overwhelm their crews and they were hurling themselves on board their ships, but one crew, brave men all, stayed on the sand to hold us back.

      ‘Are you wounded, Earsling?’ Leofric asked me.

      ‘It’s nothing.’

      ‘Stay back,’ he ordered me. He was forming Heahengel’s men into a new shield wall, a wall to thump into that one brave crew, and Alfred was there now, mail armour shining bright, and the Danes must have known he was a great lord, but they did not abandon their ships for the honour of killing him. I think that if Alfred had brought the dragon banner and fought beneath it, so that the Danes could recognise him as the king, they would have stayed and fought us and might very well have killed or captured Alfred, but the Danes were always wary of taking too many casualties and they hated losing their beloved ships, and so they just wanted to be away from that place. To which end they were willing to pay the price of the one ship to save the others, and that one ship was not Wind-Viper. I could see her being pushed into the channel, could see her creeping away backwards, see her oars striking against sand rather than water, and I splashed through the small waves, skirting our shield wall and leaving the fight to my right as I bellowed at the ship. ‘Ragnar! Ragnar!’

      Arrows were flicking past me. One struck my shield, another glanced off my helmet with a click and that reminded me that he would not recognise me with the helmet on and so I dropped Wasp-Sting and bared my head. ‘Ragnar!’

      The arrows stopped. The shield walls were crashing, men were dying, most of the Danes were escaping, and Earl Ragnar stared at me across the widening gap and I could not tell from his face what he was thinking, but he had stopped his handful of bowmen from shooting at me, and then he cupped his hands to his mouth. ‘Here!’ he shouted at me, ‘tomorrow’s dusk!’ Then his oars bit water, the Wind-Viper turned like a dancer, the blades dragged the sea and she was gone.

      I retrieved Wasp-Sting and went to join the fight, but it was over. Our crews had massacred that one Danish crew, all except a handful of men who had been spared on Alfred’s orders. The rest were a bloody pile on the tideline and we stripped them of their armour and weapons, took off their clothes and left their white bodies to the gulls. Their ship, an old and leaking vessel, was towed back to Hamtun.

      Alfred was pleased. In truth he had let six ships escape, but it had still been a victory and news of it would encourage his troops fighting in the north. One of his priests questioned the prisoners, noting their answers on parchment. Alfred asked some questions of his own, which the priest translated, and when he had learned all that he could he came back to where I was steering and looked at the blood staining the deck by my right foot. ‘You fight well, Uhtred.’

      ‘We fought badly, lord,’ I said, and that was true. Their shield wall had held, and if they had not retreated to rescue their ships they might even have beaten us back into the sea. I had not done well. There are days when the sword and shield seem clumsy, when the enemy seems quicker, and this had been one such day. I was angry with myself.

      ‘You were talking to one of them,’ Alfred said accusingly. ‘I saw you. You were talking to one of the pagans.’

      ‘I was telling him, lord,’ I said, ‘that his mother was a whore, his father a turd of hell and that his children are pieces of weasel shit.’

      He flinched at that. He was no coward, Alfred, and he knew the anger of battle, СКАЧАТЬ