‘On!’ Magnus cried, exhorting our band. Cheers erupted from the slaves as he and I rode past them to lead the charge. ‘On, on, on! For Eadmund and for Godwine!’ yelled Magnus, and I guessed those must be the names of the two brothers he had lost.
We had reached the flatter, open ground at the foot of the promontory on which Jarnborg stood. Ahead, three foemen were stumbling away from the fray: one clutching his arm; another whose face was entirely covered with blood and was missing several of his teeth; a third who had lost an eye. Too late they saw us coming. Too late they raised their weapons. My steed did not falter as I brought my weapon to bear, slicing across the shoulder of the first at the same time as Magnus battered his blade across the second’s helmet. The last, the one with the missing eye, threw himself to one side, just in time, and we left him for those behind to finish as we rode on across the open meadow, towards the heart of the fray, towards the dragon banner, which was beginning to waver as our forces pressed at it on all flanks, from the front and from behind.
Worse was to come for Haakon, too. Some of his followers had decided their lives were worth more than their oaths to their lord, for suddenly they were breaking and running. They hadn’t been expecting a battle this morning; they had no stomach for the struggle, nor in truth were they in any fit state to wield a blade, and their nerve was failing them. Their side still held the advantage in numbers but, as I’d found, numbers alone will not win a battle. Confidence is everything, and theirs had been shattered. Where bloodlust and battle-fury had reigned, now there was only fear. And just as one man’s resolve can provide inspiration for his sword-brothers, and make their hearts swell with belief both in themselves and their cause, fear can do the opposite. So it was then. Man by man, the enemy host crumbled. As each spear-Dane saw his companion deserting his side, abandoning the struggle, so he too realised his efforts were in vain. He saw the hordes of Englishmen and Normans bearing down on him with sharpened steel in their hands and death in their eyes, and he fled, spreading his panic in turn to the next man and the next and the next, until, like sparrows fleeing the hawk’s shadow, suddenly the enemy were scattering, running anywhere they could, so long as it was away from their foes.
Into that tumult, roaring, swearing death upon them, invoking God and all the saints to aid us in the slaughter of our enemies, Magnus and I charged, with the rest of our small army behind us. On horse and on foot, men and women alike, we hurled ourselves against the enemy tide, adding our numbers to those of our allies, striking out to left and right, losing ourselves to anger, to the wills of our blades, revelling in the joy of the kill. Over the heads of the enemy I glimpsed the dragon banner on the move, heading further inland, across the boggy valley to the higher ground and the safety of the woods that lay at the heart of the island. Somehow Haakon had managed to break out from the midst of the Englishmen and Frenchmen surrounding him. I made out his gleaming mail, bright beneath the morning sun, as he struck out with only his standard-bearer and a bare handful of his loyal huscarls for protection. They were on foot, having clearly lost their horses during the fighting, and were now running like the rest of their countrymen. Like cravens.
We had done it. Hard though it was to believe, we had done it. In every direction I turned, the rout was under way. Haakon had been not just crushed but humiliated.
‘Lord!’
I glanced about, saw Pons waving to me, his sword in one hand, his helmet in the other. Blood was smeared across the front of his hauberk, his hair was flattened against his head, and there was a broad grin on his grimy face. Some fifty paces further away, Wace and Eudo and their knights had managed to surround a group of Haakon’s huscarls, and I took them for such because of the long-handled axes that they each bore. These they now threw down on the ground as a sign of their surrender.
‘Where’s Serlo?’ I asked Pons. ‘Dweorg? Sceota?’
‘I don’t know, lord. I lost sight of them during the fighting.’
I glanced about, but could not spot them anywhere. I could only hope Serlo was all right.
‘We need to get after Haakon,’ I said. ‘We need to finish this.’
‘He won’t get far,’ Pons replied. ‘Where can he possibly go?’
He had a point. Even if the Dane did escape into the woods, sooner or later he would have to show himself if he didn’t want to starve. When he did, we would be ready, waiting to cut him and his retainers down. He had fought and he had lost, and he would die by one means or another, sooner or later.
At the same time, though, I knew I wouldn’t be able to rest until that murderer, that defiler, that vile heathen lay lifeless with my sword buried in his gut. For three years already I’d thirsted for justice. No longer was I to be denied.
I glanced at Magnus, and he at me, and saw that he was of the same mind.