We were just yards from the ash tree that grew a few paces from the door to Kjartan’s hall. The sapling had been planted as a symbol of Yggdrasil, the Tree of Life about which fate writhes, though this tree looked sickly, scarce more than a sapling that struggled to find space for its roots in Dunholm’s thin soil. The sentry glanced at us once, noticed nothing odd about our appearance, then turned and looked across Dunholm’s flat summit towards the gatehouse. Men were crowded on the gatehouse rampart, while other warriors stood on the wall’s fighting platforms built to left and right. A large group of mounted men waited behind the gate, doubtless ready to pursue the beaten attackers when they were repulsed from the palisade. I tried to count the defenders, but they were too many, so I looked to the right and saw a stout ladder climbing to the fighting platform on the western stretch of ramparts. That, I thought, is where we should go. Climb that ladder, capture the western wall and we could let Ragnar inside and so revenge his father and free Thyra and astonish all Northumbria.
I grinned, suddenly elated at the realisation that we were inside Dunholm. I thought of Hild and imagined her praying in her simple chapel with the beggars already huddled outside her nunnery’s gate. Alfred would be working, ruining his eyes by reading manuscripts in the dawn’s thin light. Men would be stirring on every fortification in Britain, yawning and stretching. Oxen were being harnessed. Hounds would be excited, knowing a day’s hunting was ahead, and here we were, inside Kjartan’s stronghold and no one suspected our presence. We were wet, we were cold, we were stiff and we were outnumbered by at least twenty to one, but the gods were with us and I knew we were going to win and I felt a sudden exultation. The battle-joy was coming and I knew the skalds would have a great feat to celebrate.
Or perhaps the skalds would be making a lament. For then, quite suddenly, everything went disastrously wrong.
Ten
The sentry beneath the ash tree turned and spoke to us. ‘They’re wasting their time,’ he said, obviously referring to Ragnar’s forces. The sentry had no suspicions, he even yawned as we approached him, but then something alarmed him. Perhaps it was Steapa, for there could surely be no man in Dunholm who was as tall as the West Saxon. Whatever, the man suddenly realised we were strangers and he reacted quickly by backing away and drawing his sword. He was about to yell a warning when Steapa hurled his spear that struck hard in the sentry’s right shoulder, pitching him backwards and Rypere followed fast, running his spear into the man’s belly with such force that he pinned the man to the feeble ash tree. Rypere silenced him with his sword, and just as that blood flowed, two men appeared around the corner of the smaller hall to our left and they immediately began shouting that enemies were in the compound. One turned and ran, the other drew his sword, and that was a mistake for Finan feinted low with his spear and the man lowered his blade to parry and the spear flashed up to take him in the soft flesh beneath his jaw. The man’s mouth bubbled blood onto his beard as Finan stepped close and brought his short-sword up into the man’s belly.
Two more corpses. It was raining harder again, the drops hammering onto the mud to dilute the fresh blood and I wondered if we had time to dash across the wide open space to reach the rampart ladder, and just then, to make things worse, the door to Kjartan’s hall opened and three men jostled in the doorway and I shouted at Steapa to drive them back. He used his axe, killing the first with an upwards blow of ghastly efficiency and thrusting the gutted man back into the second who took the axe-head straight in the face, then Steapa kicked the two men aside to pursue the third who was now inside the hall. I sent Clapa to help Steapa. ‘And get him out of there fast,’ I told Clapa because the horsemen by the gate had heard the commotion now and they could see the dead men and see our drawn swords and they were already turning their horses.
And I knew then that we had lost. Everything had depended on surprise, and now that we had been discovered we had no chance of reaching the northern wall. The men on the fighting platforms had turned to watch us and some had been ordered off the ramparts and they were making a shield wall just behind the gate. The horsemen, there were about thirty riders, were spurring towards us. Not only had we failed, but I knew we would be lucky to survive. ‘Back,’ I shouted, ‘back!’ All we could hope now was to retreat into the narrow alleys and somehow hold the horsemen off and reach the well gate. Gisela must be rescued and then there would be a frantic retreat downhill in front of a vengeful pursuit. Maybe, I thought, we could cross the river. If we could just wade through the swollen Wiire we might be safe from pursuit, but it was a tremulous hope at best. ‘Steapa!’ I shouted, ‘Steapa! Clapa!’ and the two came from the hall, Steapa with a blood-soaked axe. ‘Stay together,’ I shouted. The horsemen were coming fast, but we ran back towards the stables and the horsemen seemed wary of the dark, shadowed spaces between the buildings for they reined in beside the ash tree with its dead man still pinned to the trunk and I thought their caution would let us survive just long enough to get outside the fortress. Hope revived, not of victory, but of life, and then I heard the noise.
It was the sound of hounds baying. The horsemen had not stopped for fear of attacking us, but because Kjartan had released his dogs and I stared, appalled, as the hounds poured around the side of the smaller hall and came towards us. How many? Fifty? At least fifty. They were impossible to count. A huntsman drove them on with yelping shouts and they were more like wolves than hounds. They were rough-pelted, huge, howling, and I involuntarily stepped backwards. This was the hellish pack of the wild hunt, the ghost-hounds that harry the darkness and pursue their prey across the shadow world when night falls. There was no time now to reach the gate. The hounds would surround us, they would drag us down, they would savage us, and I thought this must be my punishment for killing the defenceless Brother Jænberht in Cetreht, and I felt the cold, unmanning shudder of abject fear. Die well, I told myself, die well, but how could one die well beneath the teeth of hounds? Our mail coats would slow their savagery for a moment, but not for long. And the hounds could smell our fear. They wanted blood and they came in a howling scrabble of mud and fangs, and I lowered Serpent-Breath to take the first snarling bitch in the face and just then a new voice called to them.
It was the voice of a huntress. It called clear and loud, saying no words, just chanting a weird, shrieking call that pierced the morning like a sounding horn, and the hounds stopped abruptly, twisted about and whined in distress. The closest was just three or four paces from me, a bitch with a mud-clotted pelt, and she writhed and howled as the unseen huntress called again. There was something sad in that wordless call that was a wavering, dying shriek, and the bitch whined in sympathy. The huntsman who had released the hounds tried to whip them back towards us, but again the weird, ululating voice came clear through the rain, but sharper this time, as if the huntress were yelping in sudden anger, and three of the hounds leaped at the huntsman. He screamed, then was overwhelmed by a mass of pelts and teeth. The riders spurred at the dogs to drive them off the dying man, but the huntress was making a wild screeching now that drove the whole pack towards the horses, and the morning was filled with the seethe of rain and the unearthly cries and the howl of hounds, and the horsemen turned in panic and spurred back towards the gatehouse. The huntress called again, gentler now, and the hounds obediently milled around the feeble ash tree, letting the riders go.
I had just stared. I still stared. The hounds were crouching, teeth bared, watching the door of Kjartan’s hall and it was there that the huntress appeared. She stepped over the gutted corpse Steapa had left in the doorway and she crooned at the hounds and they flattened themselves as she stared at us.
It was Thyra.
I did not recognise her at first. It had been years since I saw Ragnar’s sister, and I only remembered her as a fair child, happy and healthy, with her sensible mind set on marrying her Danish warrior. Then her father’s hall had been burned, her Danish warrior was killed and she had been taken by Kjartan and given to Sven. Now I sa
w her again and she had become a thing from nightmare.
She wore a long cloak of deerskin, held by a bone brooch at her throat, but beneath the cloak she was naked. As she walked among the hounds the cloak kept being dragged away from her body that was painfully thin and foully dirty. Her legs and arms were covered with scars as though someone had slashed her repeatedly with a knife, and where there were no scars there were sores. Her golden hair was lank, matted and greasy, and she had woven strands of dead ivy into the tangle. The ivy hung about her shoulders. Finan, seeing her, made the sign of the cross. Steapa did the same and I clutched at my hammer amulet. Thyra’s curled fingernails were as long as a gelder’s knives, and she waved those sorceress’s hands in the air and suddenly screamed at the hounds who whined and writhed as if in pain. She glanced towards us and I saw her mad eyes and I felt a pulse of fear because she was suddenly crouching and pointing directly at me, and those eyes were bright as lightning and filled with hate. ‘Ragnar!’ she shouted, ‘Ragnar!’ The name sounded like a curse and the hounds twisted to stare where she pointed and I knew they would leap at me as soon as Thyra spoke again.
‘I’m Uhtred!’ I called to her, ‘Uhtred!’ I took off my helmet so she could see my face. ‘I’m Uhtred!’
‘Uhtred?’ she asked, still looking at me, and in that brief moment she looked sane, even confused. ‘Uhtred,’ she said again, this time as if she were trying to remember the name, but the tone turned the hounds away from us and then Thyra screamed. It was not a scream at the hounds, but a wailing, howling screech aimed at the clouds, and suddenly she turned her fury on the dogs. She stooped and clutched handfuls of mud that she hurled at them. She still used no words, but spoke some tongue that the hounds understood and they obeyed her, streaming across Dunholm’s rocky summit to attack the newly made shield wall behind the gate. Thyra followed them, calling to them, spitting and shuddering, filling the hell pack with frenzy, and the fear that had rooted me to the cold ground passed and I shouted at my men to go with her.
They were terrible things, those hounds. They were beasts from the world’s chaos, trained only to kill, and Thyra drove them on with her high, wailing cries, and the shield wall broke long before the dogs arrived. The men ran, scattering across Dunholm’s wide summit and the dogs followed them. A handful, braver than the rest, stayed at the gate and that was where I now wanted to go. ‘The gate!’ I shouted at Thyra, ‘Thyra! Take them to the gate!’ She began to make a barking sound, shrill and quick, and the hounds obeyed her by running towards the gatehouse. I have seen other hunters direct hounds as deftly as a horseman guides a stallion with knees and reins, but it is not a skill I have ever learned. Thyra had it.
Kjartan’s men guarding the gate died hard. The dogs swarmed over them, teeth ripping, and I heard screams. I had still not seen Kjartan or Sven, but nor did I look for them. I only wanted to reach the big gate and open it for Ragnar, and so we followed the hounds, but then one of the horsemen recovered his wits and shouted at the frightened men to circle behind us. The horseman was a big man, his mail half covered by a dirty white cloak. His helmet had gilt-bronze eyeholes that hid his face, but I was certain it was Kjartan. He spurred his stallion and a score of men followed him, but Thyra howled some short, falling cadences, and a score of hounds turned to head the horsemen off. One rider, desperate to avoid the beasts, turned his horse too quickly and it fell, sprawling and kicking in the mud and a half-dozen hounds attacked the fallen beast’s belly while others leaped across to savage the unsaddled rider. I heard the man wail and saw a dog stagger away with a leg broken by a flailing hoof. The horse was screaming. I kept running through the streaming rain and saw a spear come flashing down from the ramparts. The men on the gatehouse roof were trying to stop us with their spears. They hurled them at the pack which still tore at the fallen shield wall remnant, but there were too many hounds. We were close to the gate now, only twenty or thirty paces away. Thyra and her hounds had brought us safe across Dunholm’s summit, and the enemy was in utter confusion, but then the white-cloaked horseman, beard thick beneath his armoured eyes, dismounted and shouted at his men to slaughter the dogs.
They made a shield wall and charged. They held their shields low to fend off the dogs and used spears and swords to kill them. ‘Steapa!’ I shouted, and he understood what was wanted and bellowed at the other men to go with him. He and Clapa were first among the dogs and I saw Steapa’s axe thud down into a helmeted face as Thyra hurled the dogs at the new shield wall. Men were clambering down from the fighting platforms to join the wild fight and I knew we had to move fast before Kjartan’s men slaughtered the pack and then came to slaughter us. I saw a hound leap high and sink its teeth into a man’s face, and the man screamed and the dog howled with a sword in its belly, and Thyra was screeching at the hounds and Steapa was holding the centre of the enemy shield wall, but it was lengthening as men joined its flanks and in a heartbeat or two the wings of the wall would fold about men and dogs and cut them down. So I ran for the gatehouse archway. That archway was undefended on the ground, but the warriors on the rampart above still had spears. All I had was the dead man’s shield and I prayed it was a good one. I hoisted it over my helmet, sheathed Serpent-Breath, and ran.
The heavy spears crashed down. They banged into the shield and splashed into the mud, and at least two pierced through the shield’s limewood boards. I felt a blow on my left forearm, and the shield became heavier and heavier as the spears weighed it down, but then I was under the arch, and safe. The dogs were howling and fighting. Steapa was bellowing at the enemy to come and fight him, but men avoided him. I could see the wings of Kjartan’s wall closing and knew we would die if I could not open the gate. I saw I would need two hands to lift the huge locking bar, but one of the spears hanging from the shield had penetrated the mail of my left forearm and I could not pull it free, so I had to use Wasp-Sting to cut the leather shield-handles away. Then I could wrench the spear-point out of my mail and arm. There was blood on the mail-sleeve, but the arm was not broken and I lifted the huge locking bar and dragged it away from the gates.
Then I pulled the gates inward and Ragnar and his men were fifty paces away and they shouted when they saw me and ran with raised shields to protect themselves from the spears and axes thrown from the ramparts, and they joined the shield wall, lengthening it and carrying their blades and fury against Kjartan’s astonished men.
And that was how Dunholm, the rocky fortress in its river-loop, was taken. Years later I was flattered by a lord in Mercia whose skald chanted a song of how Uhtred of Bebbanburg scaled the fortress crag alone and fought his way through two hundred men to open the dragon-guarded high gate. It was a fine song, full of sword-work and courage, but it was all nonsense. There were twelve of us, not one, and the dogs did most of the fighting, and Steapa did much of the rest, and if Thyra had not come from the hall then Dunholm might be ruled by Kjartan’s descendants to this day. Nor was the fight over when the gate was opened, for we were still outnumbered, but we had the remaining dogs and Kjartan did not, and Ragnar brought his shield wall into the compound and there we fought the defenders.
It was shield wall against shield wall. It was the horror of two shield walls fighting. It was the thunder of shields crashing together and the grunts of men stabbing with short-swords or twisting spears into enemy bellies. It was blood and shit and guts spilled in the mud. The shield wall is where men die and where men earn the praise of skalds. I joined Ragnar’s wall and Steapa, who had taken a shield from a hound-ripped horseman, bulled in beside me with his great war axe. We stepped over dead and dying dogs as we drove forward. The shield becomes a weapon, its great iron boss a club to drive men back, and when the enemy falters you close up fast and ram the blade forward, then step over the wounded and let the men behind you kill them. It rarely lasts long before one wall breaks, and Kjartan’s line broke first. He had tried to outflank us and send men around our rear, but the surviving hounds guarded our flanks, and Steapa was flailing with
his axe like a madman, and he was so huge and strong that he hacked into the enemy line and made it look easy. ‘Wessex!’ he kept shouting, ‘Wessex!’ as though he fought for Alfred, and I was on his right and Ragnar on his left and the rain crashed on us as we followed Steapa through Kjartan’s shield wall. We went clean through so that there was no enemy in front of us, and the broken wall collapsed as men ran back towards the buildings.
Kjartan was the man in the dirty white cloak. He was a big man, almost as tall as Steapa, and he was strong, but he saw his fortress fall and he shouted at his men to make a new shield wall, but some of his warriors were already surrendering. Danes did not give up readily, but they had discovered they were fighting fellow Danes, and there was no shame in yielding to such an enemy. Others were fleeing, going through the well gate, and I had a terror that Gisela would be discovered there and taken, but the women who had gone to draw water protected her. They all huddled inside the well’s small palisade and the panicked men fled past them towards the river.
Not all panicked or surrendered. A few gathered about Kjartan and locked their shields and waited for death. Kjartan might have been cruel, but he was brave. His son, Sven, was not brave. He had commanded the men on the gatehouse ramparts, and almost all those men fled northwards, leaving Sven with just two companions. Guthred, Finan and Rollo climbed to deal with them, but only Finan was needed. The Irishman hated fighting in the shield wall. He was too light, he reckoned, to be part of such weight-driven killing, but in the open he was a fiend. Finan the Agile, he had been called, and I watched, astonished, as he leaped ahead of both Guthred and Rollo and took on the three men alone, and his two swords were as fast as a viper’s strike. He carried no shield. He dazzled Sven’s defenders with feints, twisted past their attacks, and killed them both with a grin on his face, and then turned on Sven, but Sven was a coward. He had backed into a corner of the rampart and was holding his sword and shield wide apart as if to show he meant no mischief. Finan crouched, still grinning, ready to drive his long sword into Sven’s exposed belly.