Hereward 03 - End of Days (39 page)

After they had caught their breath, Hereward sent three men out to find kindling, and soon they were all warming their hands around a small fire. While Guthrinc and another man, Ithamar, ventured out with their bows to hunt what game they could find, they took it in turn to keep watch at either end of the cut. Alric lay on his willow bed, unmoving, and the others not on watch huddled in their cloaks near the fire, fitfully dozing. Hereward surveyed them from under heavy lids, worrying what would become of them all. Soon sleep claimed him.

For the first time in days, he saw his father’s face, and for the first time ever, it seemed, he thought of Asketil without seeing his mother’s body lying before him, her life-blood draining between the boards. Drifting, he wondered if there had ever been a time when he had considered his father with fondness. If there had, he could not recall it. And yet now he felt no threat when he remembered the old man. Nor did he feel that unpleasant churning deep in the pit of his belly where his devil lived. Perhaps it was an omen, he thought, but of what he was not sure.

The scream jerked him from his trance. His men jumped to their feet as one, clutching for their spears and shields. The firelight threw wild shadows up the walls of earth. Acha pressed her hands against her ears as that terrible cry continued without a break, rising and falling, then rising to even greater heights. No one spoke. As Hereward looked around the hunted features he knew everyone there was thinking the same: what agony could draw such a sound out of a man?

Guthrinc had returned. A half-plucked bird hung by its neck from his left hand. But of Ithamar there was no sign. The Mercian’s heart fell.

Stalking out of the cut, he cocked his head. The screaming
was not close, but it carried well across the still, night-cloaked forest.

Sighard eased beside him. The snow was still falling, coating his hair and lashes in a white dusting. ‘That is Ithamar,’ he whispered, his words heavy with dread.

Hereward nodded. ‘Harald Redteeth is taunting me.’ When he saw the other man furrow his brow, he added, ‘The Viking bastard is paying me back for something I did to one of his men nine winters gone.’

‘What did you do that could have caused such suffering?’ Sighard asked.

Hereward peered out past the ghostly oaks into the deep dark. In his mind’s eye, he saw a blade, and a stream of blood, and he remembered the man he used to be before Alric had saved him from his devil. In a voice that seemed to carry no emotion, he replied, ‘I skinned his man alive.’

C
HAPTER
F
IFTY
-N
INE

BRANCHES TORE AT
Kraki’s scarred face. His chest burned and his legs felt like lead as he lurched through knee-deep snow. Behind him, his pursuers howled with delight, sensing their prey was about to fall. Ten of them, there were, shaking their axes and swords in anticipation of slaughter.

Skidding down a steep bank, he almost stumbled over a hidden bramble snarled around his ankle. The baying at his back grew louder. He wrenched himself free and clawed his way up the other side of the hollow. As he crested the ridge, he almost stumbled into Guthrinc and Hengist, who were crouching there listening to the wild sounds of the hunt.

‘Run,’ Kraki bellowed without slowing his step.

He heard the two warriors dash away in opposite directions. Glancing back, he saw that each of his brothers was now chased by four men. But Hengist was wiry and he leapt around the trees like a deer while his pursuers stumbled over hidden hollows. And Guthrinc for all his size was as strong as an ox. The deep snow was as nothing to him.

Grunting with relief, Kraki staggered on through the oaks. He hated fleeing like some frightened rabbit. Would that he could take a stand and test the blade of his axe upon the two
bastards still on his tail. But they were silent now, loping like wolves as they ran him to ground. They wanted to trap him, come at him from different sides so he did not have a chance to defend himself.

His breath smoked as he searched the wood ahead. Against the gentle folds of white he glimpsed a thick band of black hawthorn and struggled towards it. Their war-band was scattered across the forest now, torn apart by Redteeth’s men. He mouthed a silent prayer to Woden that they all yet lived.

A narrow path weaved through the wall of hawthorn, banks of lethal barbs rising up on either side. Kraki plunged into its midst, pushing his right shoulder forward so he could edge along the track at speed without harm. Even so, he felt the thorns rip through the flesh of his forearm as he brushed past. A trail of blood spattered on the hard-packed snow beneath his feet.

Following the trail of many footprints, he burst from the hawthorn into a bowl-shaped depression. The wall of black thorn continued all around the rim. He was trapped. Sliding into the hollow, he bounded to the other side to make his stand. His feet flew out from under him and he crashed face down in a drift. As he pushed his head up, his beard frosted with flakes, he heard his pursuers yelp and curse as they edged through the hawthorn. He rolled on to his back and fumbled for his axe.

The first man stepped out on to the edge of the hollow. He had eyes like a winter sky framed in the eyelets of his helm. He grinned as he pointed his sword towards the fallen Viking. Behind him, a moan rustled out. For a moment, the warrior paid no attention to the sound, and then, as he realized his companion had not followed him out, he began to turn.

With a hiss like a spitting wildcat, a figure flew from the track through the hawthorn. Cloak flapping behind, it crashed on to the Norman’s back, pitching him down into the hollow. He had not even a moment to cry out before his face slammed into the snow. A short-bladed knife rose and fell, rose and fell.
Blood gouted. The stabbing only stopped when the body ceased all movement.

Levering himself up on his elbows, Kraki grinned. ‘A well-made plan is a joy to behold.’

Acha looked up with fierce, dark eyes. A line of blood spattered across her pale skin from eye to jaw. The Viking thought that at that moment he would be happy to give his heart to her for ever. ‘Two down,’ she said. ‘The rest …?’

He cocked his head and listened. From across the forest, a peal of cries rolled out from different locations, Norman or English, he could not yet be sure. ‘Help me up,’ he growled. ‘They had the numbers, now let us see if we had the wits.’

C
HAPTER
S
IXTY

THE BLOODY HAND
stained a crimson circle in the snow. On top of a bank it lay, as if beckoning to the five men who stared at it. After the hunt and the screams, the sounds of men had once again faded from the wildwood. Only the desolate call of the icy wind in the trees, and the creak of branches and the whispers of the stirring holly, remained.

‘The
wuduwasa
,’ one of the Normans said, crossing himself. He could not tear his eyes from the gory remnant. The two warriors who flanked him looked around with unease, pulling their cloaks tight to them. The snow had started to drift down once more.

‘What is the
wuduwasa
?’ Deda asked. He crouched so that the hand fell into his line of sight.

‘A story as old as time that the English tell themselves around the hearths in midwinter. The wild man of the woods,’ Harald Redteeth muttered. The breeze rattled the bird-skulls hanging on the thongs on his hauberk.

‘ ’Tis true,’ the first Norman muttered. ‘In the tavern in Lincylene, a woodworker told how the
wuduwasa
chased him through the woods. It tore his friend limb from limb and gnawed on his bones.’

‘ ’Twas the mead speaking,’ the Viking growled. Yet he felt his neck prickle none the less. Beside the fire in the mountains of his home, his father had told him of stranger things.

‘The wild men of the woods,’ Deda mused. ‘That is what the English call Hereward’s men. Are they, then, one and the same? Or distant cousins? There is magic in both of them, the English believe.’ He smiled, tracing his forefinger in the air. ‘A clean cut across the wrist. Unless the
wuduwasa
wields a sword, this is the work of men.’

The knight stood up and looked around. He frowned, puzzled to see that the three Norman warriors were not comforted by his words. ‘Men,’ he insisted. ‘Not stories to frighten children.’

‘They are children,’ Redteeth snapped. He whirled and shook his axe in the faces of his warriors. ‘Do not let the English frighten you. They have torn through us like the wind. Look how many still stand. And all because of our weakness. We were too slow. Too trusting of our own strength. We thought them wounded and broken by defeat, fleeing before our might until we picked them off one by one. We should have known better. They are English. They fight like rats in a corner until their last breath.’

‘They outnumber us now,’ one of the men ventured. His voice tailed off when he saw the fire in the Viking’s eyes.

‘We will not be beaten,’ Redteeth rumbled. ‘I will have Hereward’s head.’

Deda strode up the bank. He tapped the severed hand with the tip of his sword and looked out into the white wastes of the forest ahead. It was hard to see more than a spear’s throw through the blizzard. ‘A trail of blood,’ the knight said. ‘Would it be wise to follow it?’

‘No,’ the frightened Norman warrior exclaimed. His two companions nodded and murmured in agreement.

‘We move on,’ the Northman roared. He stormed up the bank and strode into the teeth of the wind.

Splashes of blood led in a near-straight line, past fingers of
yellowing grass waving through the snow, over roots and alongside the rotting hulks of fallen trees.

‘Why would the English lure us on?’ Deda asked. ‘This must be a trap.’

‘They try to frighten us,’ the Viking replied.

Coming to a halt, the knight looked along the trail. A glistening liver lay on the path. Behind him, one of the men whimpered. ‘And it seems they have succeeded,’ Deda murmured.

Redteeth swung his leg and kicked the liver deep into the trees. He marched on without another word. A little further on, they stopped in front of a pile of blue-grey entrails, still steaming in the cold.

‘No man could have done this,’ one of the Norman warriors gasped.

‘ ’Tis the
wuduwasa
,’ another whispered.

‘Stand your ground,’ the Viking growled. Even as the words left his lips, he heard the crump of feet racing away through the snow. He whirled to see the three men darting into the haze of white.

Deda rested a calming hand on the Northman’s shoulder. ‘Even good coin cannot abate a man’s fears.’

Snarling, Redteeth whirled and continued along the trail of blood spatters, all caution now thrown to the wind. As he crested another ridge, he found himself peering at a human heart, as big as a man’s fist. He snatched it up. It was still warm. With the blood caking his fingers, he threw his arm back and hurled the heart away. ‘Come for me now,’ he roared into the face of the blizzard. ‘Do not hide like whipped dogs. Fight like men.’

Deda caught his arm. ‘Do not be hasty. Our position is weak. Let us find shelter, wait until this snow has passed—’

The Viking threw him off. ‘I am weary of running and hunting. I would have an end to it. Nine long years I have chased Hereward over hill and bog, across England and Flanders and the whale road. This has become my life now, the two of us
caught in a dance that seems to have no end.’ He shook his axe as if he would challenge the gale itself. ‘Ivar, loyal Ivar, walks the grey path still. Denied the Halls of the Fallen, denied his cups of mead and his handmaidens. Because of Hereward.’ His chest heaved. ‘Because of my failings. I would have an end to it!’

‘Hark,’ the knight said, turning his head. He narrowed his eyes, listening.

‘I hear nothing.’

Deda held out a hand to silence his friend. In the distance, a lonely cry rolled out, almost lost beneath the moaning of the wind.

Still unsure that he had heard anything, the Viking listened again.

The sound echoed once more, closer this time. A howl.

Redteeth looked down at the blood staining his hands, and the trail of gore reaching out across the forest behind them. The scent of fresh meat hanging in the air: no greater lure to the hungry wolves roaming the wildwood. ‘The bastard English,’ he cursed under his breath, but a part of him could not help but admire his enemy’s wits.

He and Deda spun round as one and raced back through the trees. Behind them, the wolves called to each other, their baying becoming one voice, rushing towards their backs faster than either of them could run.

Redteeth blinked the stinging snow from his eyes. He could hear the pounding of heavy paws close by. Inflamed by the scent of blood, the pack would not relent, he knew. He had seen a man torn to pieces in an instant in the woods near his father’s hall.

‘There is an oak with branches low enough to climb just ahead,’ Deda gasped, ‘if only we can reach it.’

The Viking squinted through the blizzard and saw the tree the knight meant, an old man oak, broad and hunched, with strong branches reaching out just above the height of his head. He heaved in a gulp of air to drive him on. The cold burned in his throat.

But then he sensed a blur of movement beside him. He glanced into the burning yellow eyes of a wolf and knew that he would never reach the safety of the tree. Roaring his fury, he whirled his axe and buried it in the creature’s head as it leapt for his throat. The impact jolted deep into his shoulder, but the beast’s skull split in two and it fell to the ground, dead. He spun round and hacked another one before it could get its fangs upon him. Blood sprayed.

A few paces ahead, Deda turned and drew his sword. The knight could have reached the old oak, but he would not abandon his brother. Redteeth felt warmed by that thought.

Waving their weapons from side to side as the pack circled them, they edged back until they felt the rough wood of another oak at their backs. ‘We make our stand here, then,’ the Viking growled.

‘A good choice,’ the knight replied.

Ten grey wolves loped among the trees, waiting for their opening. Their pale eyes reminded Redteeth of Hereward, and that only drove him to greater rage. For long moments the creatures ranged, and then, as if upon a silent signal, they attacked as one, low and fast and powerful. The Viking’s vision filled with snapping jaws and fur and gleaming golden eyes. His head rang with their snarling. Fangs sank into his right forearm as he threw it up to guard his face. Ignoring the agony, he hacked with his axe. A spine severed. A head sheared in two. Hot blood gushed down his face and chest. With a roar, he lopped off the head of the beast tearing at his arm. The body fell away, leaving the fangs embedded in his flesh. With a flick of his wrist, the rest flew away into the snow.