towards her. She was not coming fast because she was rowing into the wind, she was heavy, and she had too few oarsmen, so it was doubtful that she could sink us as we had sunk the snake-ship, but the height of her prow would let her warriors leap down into our wide belly.
Then Banamaðr suddenly crossed our bows. She was running before the wind and I saw Egil thrust his steering-oar to turn towards the cross-prowed ship. The helmsman of that ship saw the Norseman coming and, even though Banamaðr was half his size, he must have feared being rammed because he shouted at his larboard oarsmen to back water and so slewed to meet Egil’s threat bows on. He was close to us now, so close! I shoved the steering-oar, but still it would not bite, which meant Spearhafoc was dead in the water and still being wind-driven towards the enemy. I let go of the oar’s loom and took my shield from Roric. ‘Get ready!’ I shouted. I drew Wasp-Sting, my seax, and the short blade hissed from the fleece-lined scabbard. Broken waves slopped between our ships. The enemy ship had turned towards Egil and would now crash broadside into us, and her crew, armed and mailed, was standing ready to leap. I saw a half-dozen archers raise their bows, then there was sudden chaos in the belly of the cross-prowed ship as Banamaðr slid down her larboard side to shatter the oars. The oar looms were driven hard into the bellies of the rowers, the ship seemed to shiver, the archers staggered and their arrows flew wild, Egil loosed his sail to fly free in the wind as he turned to slide his bows against the enemy’s stern. He had men with long-bearded axes ready to grapple the enemy, Banamaðr’s bows glanced on the enemy’s stern quarter, both ships lurched, the axes fell to draw the two hulls together and I saw the first screaming Norsemen leap onto the cross-prowed ship’s stern.
Then we hit. We crashed into the enemy’s steerboard oars first, which cracked and splintered, but also held her off for a moment. One huge man, his mouth open as he yelled, leaped at Spearhafoc, but his own ship lurched as he jumped and his bellow of defiance turned into a desperate shout as he fell between the ships. He flailed as he tried to grab our rail, but one of my men kicked his hands and he vanished, dragged down by his armour. The wind drove our stern against the enemy and I jumped onto her steering platform, followed by Folcbald and Beornoth. Egil’s savage Norsemen had already killed the helmsman and were now fighting in the belly of the boat, and I was shouting at men to follow me. I jumped down from the steering platform, and a boy, no more than a child, screamed in terror. I kicked him under a rower’s bench and snarled at him to stay there.
‘Another bastard coming!’ Oswi, who had once been my servant and had become an eager, vicious fighter, shouted from Spearhafoc, and I saw the last of the enemy’s larger ships was coming to the rescue of the boat we had boarded. Thorolf, Egil’s brother, had stayed aboard Banamaðr with just three men, and they now loosed their ship and let the wind carry her out of the approaching boat’s way. More of my men were leaping aboard to join me, but there was little room for us to fight. The wide belly of the boat was crammed with warriors, the Norsemen grinding forward from bench to bench, their shield wall stretching the full width of the big ship’s waist. The enemy crew was trapped there between Egil’s ferocious attackers and Finan’s men, who had managed to reach the platform on the prow and were thrusting down with spears. Our challenge then would be to defeat the third ship, which was being rowed towards us. I climbed back onto the steering platform.
The approaching ship, like the one on which we fought, had a cross high on her prow. It was a dark cross, the wood smeared with pitch, and behind it were crammed the armed and helmeted warriors. The ship was heavy and slow. A man at the prow was shouting instructions to the helmsman and thrusting an arm northwards, and slowly the big ship turned that way and I saw the men in the prow raise their shields. They planned to board us at our stern and attack Egil’s men from behind. The rowers on the ship’s steerboard side slid their long looms from the holes and the big ship coasted slowly towards us. The rowers picked up shields and drew swords. I noted that the shields were not painted, bearing neither a cross nor any other symbol. If these men had been sent by Æthelhelm, and I was increasingly sure of that, they had clearly been ordered to disguise that truth. ‘Shield wall!’ I shouted. ‘And brace yourselves!’
There must have been a dozen men on the steering platform with me. There was no room for more, though the enemy, whose prow was higher than our stern, planned to join us. I looked through the finger-width gap between my shield and Folcbald’s and saw the great prow just feet away. A wave lifted it, then it crashed down and slammed into us, splintering the top strake, then the enemy’s dark bow grated down our stern as I staggered from the impact. I had a glimpse of a man leaping onto me, axe raised, and I lifted the shield and felt the shudder as his axe buried its blade in the willow board.
Almost any fight on shipboard is a confusion of men packed too close together. In battle even the best disciplined shield wall tends to spread as men try to make room for their weapons, but on a ship there is no space to spread. There is only the foetid breath of an enemy trying to kill you, the press of men and steel, the screams of blade-pierced victims, the raw stink of blood in the scuppers, and the crush of death on a lurching deck.
Which is why I had drawn Wasp-Sting. She is a short blade, scarce longer than my fore-arm, but there is no room to swing a long-sword in the crush of death. Except there was no crush. The ship had struck us, had broken the strake, but even as more of the enemy readied themselves to leap down at us, a heave of the sea lifted and drove their ship back. Not far, scarcely a pace on land, but the first men to leap flailed as the ships drifted apart. The axeman, his blade still buried in my shield, sprawled on the deck and Folcbald, on my right, stabbed down with his seax and the man shrieked like a child as the blade punctured mail, broke ribs and buried itself in the man’s lungs. I kicked the man’s shrieking face, stabbed Wasp-Sting into his thick beard, and saw the blood spread across the ship’s pale deck planks.
‘More coming!’ Beornoth shouted behind me. I ripped Wasp-Sting to one side, widening the bloody slash in the axeman’s throat, then raised my shield and half crouched. I saw the dark prow loom again, saw it strike our hull again, and then something heavy struck my shield. I could not see what it was, but blood was dripping from the iron rim. ‘Got him!’ Beornoth called. He was close behind me, and, like most of the second rank, was holding an ash-shafted spear that slanted towards the enemy ship’s high prow. Men who leaped on us risked being impaled on those long blades. Another heave of the waves parted the ships again, and the dying man slid from my shield as Beornoth tugged the spear-blade loose. The dying man still moved, and Wasp-Sting struck again. The deck was red now, red and slippery. Another enemy, face contorted in rage, made a giant leap, hammering his shield forward to break our line, but Beornoth heaved on me from behind and the man’s shield clashed on mine and he staggered back against the rail. He lunged his seax past my shield, his toothless mouth opened in a silent bellow of rage, but the point of his blade slid off my mail and I hammered my shield forward and the man cursed as he was forced backwards. I pushed my shield again, and he cried aloud as he fell between the ships.
The wind drove us back onto the big enemy ship. Her prow was a good three feet higher than the stern where we stood. Five men had managed to board us, and all five were dead, and now the enemy on that high prow tried to kill us by thrusting spears at us. The lunges were futile, simply banging into our shields. I could hear a man encouraging them. ‘They’re pagans! Do God’s work! Board them and slaughter them!’
But they had no belly for boarding. They had to jump down onto the waiting spears, and instead I could see men going to the waist of their ship where it would be easier to cross to us, except that Egil’s men had finished their killing and now waited for the next fight. ‘Beornoth!’ I somehow stepped back, forcing my way through the second rank. ‘Stay here,’ I told him, ‘keep those bastards busy.’ I left six men to help him, then led the rest down into the blood-spattered waist. ‘Oswi! Folcbald! We’re crossing over! All of you! Come!’
The wind and sea were turning us so that at any moment the two ships would lie side by side. The enemy waited in their ship’s belly. They had a shield wall, which told me they did not want to board us, but
