He had come with the morning rain and the first I knew of his arrival was when the sentries in the look-out tower clanged the iron bar that served as our alarm bell. It was an hour or so after dawn, though the only hint of the sun was a ghostly paleness in the eastern clouds. ‘There are people out there,’ one of the sentries told me, pointing north, ‘on foot.’
I leaned on the tower’s parapet and stared into the patchy mist and rain as Finan climbed the ladder behind me. ‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘Maybe shepherds?’ I suggested. I could see nothing. The rain was less violent now, just a steady drenching.
‘They were running towards us, lord,’ the sentry said.
‘Running?’
‘Stumbling anyway.’
I stared, but saw nothing.
‘There were horsemen too,’ Godric, who was the second sentry, said. He was young and not too clever. Until a year before he had been my servant and he was liable to see enemies in any shadow.
‘I didn’t see horsemen, lord,’ the first sentry, a reliable man called Cenwulf, said.
Our horses were being saddled ready for the day’s journey. I wondered if it was worth taking scouts north to discover if there really were men out there and who they were and what they wanted. ‘How many men did you see?’ I asked.
‘Three,’ Cenwulf said.
‘Five,’ Godric said at the same time, ‘and two horsemen.’
I gazed north and saw nothing except the rain falling on bracken. Drifts of ragged mist hid some of the further swells in the land. ‘Probably shepherds,’ I said.
‘There were horsemen, lord,’ Godric said uncertainly, ‘I saw them.’
No shepherd would ride a horse. I gazed into the rain and mist. Godric’s eyes were younger than Cenwulf’s, but his imagination was also a lot more fanciful.
‘Who in Christ’s name would be out there at this time of morning?’ Finan grumbled.
‘No one,’ I said, straightening up, ‘Godric’s imagining things again.’
‘I’m not, lord!’ he said earnestly.
‘Dairymaids,’ I said, ‘he thinks of nothing else.’
‘No, lord!’ he blushed.
‘How old are you now?’ I asked him. ‘Fourteen? Fifteen? That’s all I ever thought about at your age. Tits.’
‘You haven’t changed much,’ Finan muttered.
‘I did see them, lord,’ Godric protested.
‘You were dreaming of tits again,’ I said, then stopped. Because there were men on the rain-soaked hills.
Four men appeared from a fold in the ground. They were running towards us, running desperately, and a moment later I saw why, because six horsemen came out of the mist, galloping to cut the fugitives off. ‘Open the gate!’ I shouted to the men at the tower’s foot. ‘Get out there! Bring those men here!’
I scrambled down the ladder, arriving just as Rorik brought Tintreg. I had to wait as the girth was tightened, then I hauled myself into the saddle and followed a dozen mounted men out onto the hillside. Finan was not far behind me. ‘Lord!’ Rorik was shouting at me as he ran from the fort. ‘Lord!’ He was holding my heavy sword belt with the scabbarded Serpent-Breath.
I turned, leaned from the saddle and just drew the sword, leaving belt and scabbard in Rorik’s hands. ‘Go back to the fort, boy.’
‘But …’
‘Go back!’
The dozen men who had been already mounted ready to leave the fort were well ahead of me, all riding to cut off the horsemen who pursued the four men. Those horsemen, seeing they were outnumbered, sheered away and just then a fifth fugitive appeared. He must have been hiding in the bracken beyond the skyline and now ran into view, leaping down the slope. The horsemen saw him and turned again, this time towards the fifth man, who, hearing their hooves, twisted away, but the leading rider slowed, calmly levelled a spear, then thrust its blade into the fugitive’s spine. For a heartbeat the man arched his back, staying on his feet, then the second rider overtook him, back-swung an axe and I saw the bright sudden mist of blood. The man collapsed instantly, but his death had distracted and delayed his pursuers and so saved his four companions, who were now guarded by my men.
‘Why didn’t that stupid fool stay hidden?’ I asked, nodding to where the six horsemen had surrounded the fallen man.
‘That’s why,’ Finan answered, and pointed towards the northern skyline where a crowd of horsemen was appearing from the mist. ‘God save us,’ he said, making the sign of the cross, ‘but it’s a god-damned army.’
Behind me the sentries on the tower were clanging the iron bar to bring the rest of my men to the fort’s ramparts. A gust of rain blew heavy and sudden, lifting the cloaks of the horsemen who lined the skyline. There were dozens of them. ‘No banner,’ I said.
‘Your cousin?’
I shook my head. In the grey and rain-smeared light it was hard to see the distant men, but I doubted my cousin would have had the courage to bring his garrison this far south through a dark night. ‘Einar, perhaps?’ I asked, but in that case who had they been chasing? I spurred Tintreg towards my men, who guarded the four fugitives.
‘They’re Norsemen, lord!’ Gerbruht shouted as I approached.
The four were soaked through, shaking with cold, and terrified. They were all young, fair-haired, and had inked faces. When they saw my drawn sword they dropped to their knees. ‘Lord, please!’ one of them said.
I looked north and saw that the army of horsemen had not moved. They just watched us. ‘Three hundred men?’ I guessed.
‘Three hundred and forty,’ Finan said.
‘My name,’ I said to the men who knelt in the wet heather, ‘is Uhtred of Bebbanburg.’ I saw the fear on their faces and let them feel it for a few heartbeats. ‘And who are you?’
They muttered their names. They were Einar’s men, sent to scout for us. They had ridden for much of the previous afternoon, and, not finding our trail, had camped in a shepherd’s hut in the western hills, but just before dawn the horsemen to the north had disturbed their sleep and they had run, abandoning their own horses in their panic. ‘So who are they?’ I nodded at the horsemen to the north.
‘We thought they were your men, lord!’
‘You don’t know who’s chasing you?’ I asked.
‘Enemies, lord,’ one of them said miserably and unhelpfully.
‘So tell me what happened.’
The five men had been sent by Einar to look for us, but three of the mysterious mounted scouts had discovered them in the wolf-light
