‘Normandy!’ I cried, hoping to catch the attention of some of those Englishmen, to draw them away, but my voice was hoarse from so much shouting, and they didn’t seem to hear me.
In fact it was probably a good thing that they didn’t, since it meant that they knew nothing of our charge until we were upon them. With weapons drawn and gleaming in the morning light we fell upon them, throwing our sword-edges and our lance-points into the fray, losing ourselves to the wills of our blades as we struck and struck again, laying about with sharpened steel, roaring as one, clearing a path through their lines, swearing death upon them all, smashing our shield-bosses into their brows, burying steel in their backs, piercing mail and cloth and flesh, riding them down so that their skulls and ribs were crushed beneath the charge, doing our best to drive them back.
Eudo risked a glance towards us, and I saw the desperation in his eyes. His shield was splintered and the hide, emblazoned with the tusked boar that was his device, had half fallen away from the limewood boards, rendering it all but useless.
‘Retreat!’ I yelled to him and Serlo and Pons and the dozen or so others who were with them, and hoped that they heard me above the clash of arms and the shouts and the screams.
‘Back to the lion banner!’ Wace was shouting.
For suddenly there was open space at our backs, offering a way out of that mêlée, and I knew we had to seize this opportunity while we could. Our charge was beginning to slow; the enemy were regrouping as warning shouts echoed through their ranks and they turned to face the new threat, and with every heartbeat their numbers were swelling. If we were to beat our retreat, now was the time.
‘With me,’ I said. ‘With me!’
I clattered the flat of my blade against an Englishman’s helmet and wheeled about, looking to escape the fray—
Too late.
Already the enemy had come around our flanks, and now they were closing upon us from front and rear, presenting their bright-painted shields and overlapping the iron rims with those of their neighbours so as to form a wall.
We were surrounded, and there was no way out.
Then from the ramparts to the north came a sound that was only too familiar, as hundreds upon hundreds of warriors struck their spear-hafts and axe-handles and swords and seaxes against the rims and the faces of their shields, keeping a steady rhythm. With each beat they roared a single word, over and over and over, like a pack of ravening wolves who had scented easy meat.
Ut. Ut. Ut.
The white stag was advancing, leaving behind it the defences the rebels had built. Under that banner bobbed a thousand shining spearpoints. Morcar’s confidence had overcome his caution, and he would wait no longer. He saw a chance to press his advantage, to drive us back into the marsh, to win glory and renown among his people and give his followers and Englishmen everywhere the victory they had long desired: one that they would sing of in their feasting-halls and that would be remembered down the ages. They would praise him as the defender of Elyg, the man who dared to stand against King Guillaume and who did what Harold and Eadgar ?theling could not. Little would they realise that he was nothing but a worthless perjurer, a foul oath-breaker.
‘Tancred!’
I tore my gaze away from the stag banner just in time as the enemy surged forward and I found myself staring at more blades than I could count. Fyrheard lashed out with his hooves and my sword struck and struck again, but for each one I dispatched, it seemed that two more took his place.
‘Die, you bastards,’ Eudo was yelling as he heaved his blade around, backhanding the edge across an English throat. Blood gurgled forth, trickling down the man’s neck as he clutched at the wound and gasped vainly for breath. ‘Die!’
One thickset warrior clutched at the bottom edge of my kite shield, trying to tug it down and out of position, while another, gangly and with dark hair trailing from beneath his helmet-rim, grabbed hold of my spear-arm. I smashed my boss into the first’s temple, then jabbed my elbow into the second’s chin, sending both stumbling backwards and bringing me a moment’s respite, although it had to be only a matter of time before they overwhelmed us.
‘There are too many of them,’ Serlo shouted, as if I didn’t already know. ‘We can’t—’
‘Hold firm,’ I said, shouting him down. Whatever he had to say, I didn’t want to hear it. ‘Stay close and don’t let them through!’
My heart was hammering in my chest and my lungs were burning as I struggled to breathe. I was determined, though, not to give in. Not while I still had a sword in my hand and my head upon my shoulders. I would keep the battle-anger blazing in my veins as long as I could. If this was my fate, then the least I could do was take as many of the Devil-spawn with me as possible.