11.
11.
There was no hailstorm of bullets like on Omaha Beach.
It was, rather, so desolate that only the crashing waves and the rushing wind sounded noisily.
Unlike the shingle beach at Dover, where we had stopped the ships a little way out and slowly hauled them in, this nameless beach in East Anglia was all sand, and the longships rode the force of the waves and slid smoothly up onto the shore.
"Heave-ho."
Whenever I leapt over the prow and stepped onto land like this, the pleasant, firm rebound of solid earth always seemed to fill me with new strength. The warriors, who disembarked one by one with me at the head, soon hauled the ship, about two-thirds of it beached, completely onto the sand, then checked their numbers and gear as they formed ranks.
Not a systematic roll-call system like 'Ack! Personnel and gear all accounted for! I-love-the-corps-sir!' but more of a check-the-man-next-to-you kind of thing. After roughly dusting the sand clinging to my hands, I glanced at Ivar, who was sending the departure signal to the officers, then looked toward the gently sloping hill we had to cross—
'Huh? What's that?'
—On top of the low hill, three men on horseback were staring at us uninvited guests with wide, unblinking eyes.
"..."
"... Hyah! Gee-up!"
Time, which had paused for a moment while both sides took in the situation, began to flow again. The three men, who were certainly scouts or patrolmen of the Kingdom of East Anglia, soon wheeled their horses and galloped off madly somewhere, vanishing beyond my sight.
"This is going to be troublesome."
Ivar, who had likewise been watching the patrol flee in haste, stood beside me and murmured low.
"I had no intention of hiding, but I didn't wish for us to be spotted this quickly."
[Tsk-tsk-tsk-]
Clicking his tongue while stroking the grip of his exotic sword, Ivar looked utterly composed.
"What should we do, Ivar?"
"Well, first we'll have to cross that hill."
"And then?"
"Then we go forward, brother. Until the master of this land shows himself."
Ivar said it as casually as picking wild berries, but the words were anything but light, and as I moved to the head of the column slowly completing its marching formation, I asked Ivar again.
"Is the Konungr of the East Angles preparing to fight us?"
"That I do not know, brother. Regrettably, I am not a man graced by the gods as you are, but an ordinary man. To me, the future is like a fog-bound sea at night."
"Ivar, I cannot see the future either."
"I wonder."
To Ivar, who was looking at me with doubtful eyes, I shook my head and spread both palms open. That gesture was surely a universal human expression for 'I don't know'—or 'what are you talking about'. At my evasive gesture, Ivar burst out laughing.
"Hahaha! You had best stop those childlike antics in the body of a giant, Helgi."
Chatting like that, we climbed the hill that had been rudely blocking the path from the shore to the interior, and at last, a wide, open vista welcomed us.
"I think, Helgi."
The weather, all green though slowly darkening. As the wind grew chill, as if rain would soon fall, Ivar, who had been watching the officers check the horses' hoofprints around us, called out to me as I admired the beautiful nature of the island of Britain.
"That our having spoken with the priest of Canterbury—"
"The Archbishop?"
"Yes, whatever. That our talk with that old man seems to have reached this far."
"... Indeed, that seems likely."
The Archbishop might have sent out couriers, or it might have traveled by the mouths of traveling merchants. Probably both.
"If I were the Konungr of East Anglia, I would reckon a warband of around 800 men worth testing myself against."
Yes, that was it. In any case, this was East Anglia's home ground. If they meant to fight, numbers would hardly be a problem for them. This was a world where you could roughly grab some farmers, thrust a spear and shield into their hands, and they became soldiers at once. Properly trained warriors with quality gear were few.
"Hmm. So what should we do, Ivar?"
At my question, the newbie expedition leader, the veteran commander Ivar answered without hesitation.
"First, we go and meet them. Once we meet them, then we decide. Whether to run, or to fight."
I nodded at that resolute answer, but seeing the look in Ivar's eyes as he kept fiddling with his sword grip, the premonition that a great battle was soon to be upon us refused to leave my mind.
*****
Usually, when people think of a Viking, they picture a fearsome warrior with a bushy beard and an axe. And astonishingly, from what I had seen here with my own two eyes, every element of that sentence was wrong.
First, they did not even use the term Viking. There were no bushy beards—I emphasize once more that we Northmen care greatly about grooming; having wandered far and wide, we saw many things, which is to say we were trend-conscious hipsters. And instead of axes, they mainly carried spears. It was true they fought well, but it differed somewhat from the feeling of 'fearsome.' Rather, the expression 'cold-blooded (and crafty) plunderers' suited them better.
Therefore, the sight before my eyes now was one that might disappoint someone expecting something grandiose.
"About a thousand, I'd say? At any rate, they seem a bit more numerous than us."
As soon as we left the shore, we had passed through marshland that squelched and clung to our steps. Then we had crossed several hills—exaggerating slightly, it felt like there was one every hundred paces—and what appeared was a massed force waiting for us.
At the head of the Angles, positioned on a rather high slope, a man in well-appointed armor and a gleaming metal crown stood scowling fiercely, straining his eyes.
"Ivar, there is the Konungr of the Angles."
"Yes, I see him well, Helgi. It seems he does not wish to converse with us..."
The armor of the Anglian infantry arrayed in a line was motley, but they were peasants who had somehow managed to procure and wear spears, shields, and helmets. My superior sight sensed deep unease in their expressions.
'Hmm.'
On the other hand, the faces of the Northmen warriors caught in my glance as I briefly turned aside held not fear, but a resolve to prepare for the coming fight.
'Their only advantage over us was being on high ground.'
In my view, it looked entirely manageable.
The slope was no ninety degrees—it was a gentle incline that could easily be climbed at a quick march. The distance was not as long as I had thought, and I could see few archers they had prepared. Moreover, just in case, I had even personally gone out as a scout and used my sharp eyes and ears to search for traps or hidden troops, but there was no sign of such.
There was only one troubling point: the warriors of Árós (myself included) still had no experience fighting a large-scale(?) engagement like this.
"They must have scraped together a force in a hurry. Edmund, Cyning of East Anglia."
Ivar, his gaze fixed on the long line of Angles shouting down at us from the hilltop in an attempt to intimidate, wet his lips with a dangerous glint in his eyes. His hand rested on his sword, his pupils darting restlessly before sinking still. Those deep green eyes finally came to a halt upon Edmund, who sat arrogantly at the front atop a pure white horse, looking down on us.
"Watch closely, Helgi. If something's ambiguous, you strike first and figure it out later. Odin watches the valiant with his one eye."
[Sreung—!]
As if his mind was finally made up, Ivar drew his long sword in a single motion and swiftly issued his commands.
"Guthrum! Take the right flank. Helgi! Go to the left. I will lead the center. Today, we shall ask our old neighbors how they have fared after putting it off for so long."
"Understood! Jarl Ivar!"
"Understood."
As Ivar's orders fell and Guthrum took off, I sprinted in the exact opposite direction. In that instant, I felt something like a great serpent coiling up within me.
The lieutenants, seeing Guthrum and me dashing to the flanks of the formation, shouted loudly,
"Bardaga! Tilbúin! (Prepare for battle, bardaga tilbúin)" And the mood of the warriors, rigid with tension moments before, now glistened with killing intent. Spears and shields gleamed coolly under the sun descending through the clouds.
"Hrolf! We attack. We will move on the center's signal."
"Understood! Jarl Helgi!"
[Buuuuuu— Uuuuung—]
"Áfram! (áfram, forward)"
[Buuuung—]
Soon after, the thunderous sound of a horn filled the wide space from the center, and answered by horns from both flanks in turn. The long-stretched battle lines slowly began to advance.
[Chuk! Chuk! Chuk! Chuk!]
It wasn't a unified stomping in step like a 21st-century military drill, but the irregular footsteps merging together had a power all their own. I had the easy thought, 'My 21st-century sensibility that tries to find order in disorder still lingered inside me,' as I walked at the head of the formation and saw the enemy archers drawing their bowstrings.
"Enemy archers! Skjöld! (Shields, skjöld)"
"All men, raise shields!"
[Sssssssshek— Puk! Pububub—Puk!]
The difference between elite warriors and the unskilled reveals itself most clearly on the battlefield in whether or not their ears are open. In that sense, my personal retinue and Ivar's warriors were all elite. The line halted as one at my signal and instantly stacked their shields, blocking the rain of arrows.
The pleasing sound of arrows striking shields ended, and with Ivar's vigorous command to advance again, we shook off the arrows lodged here and there and steadily increased our pace up the incline.
"Skjöld!"
[Sssssssssshek— Puk! Puk! Puk! Puk!]
"Áfram—!"
[Chuk! Chuk! Chuk! Chuk!]
The repeated sequence of arrow volleys, halting, and shields. After roughly four repetitions of this series, aside from the men who fell behind with arrows in places their shields could not protect, the formation that had been like a single straight line began to tangle up here and there.
"Halda! Línu! (halda línu) Keep the line! Keep the line!"
"O-din—!"
"Tyr—!"
But soon enough, such petty problems as a tangled line or stragglers vanished from everyone's minds. For at last, the shield wall of the Angles and the shield wall of the Norsemen had met.
"The Lord is with us! Hold!"
"We must not be pushed back!"
"Val-halla—!"
"Push! Push them back!"
Now, all that remained in this place were the shouts, sweat, and blood of men gritting their teeth and thrusting spears, hiding their bodies behind shields, and hurling broken spears at one another.
[Kung! Hwik—]
I was the first to clash with the enemy at the head of the line, and I suppressed my wildly racing heart to maintain cold composure as much as possible.
'I am not being consumed by the madness. I am human.'
Humans are animals who wield reason as a weapon. Therefore, I calmly looked upon the Angle before me, his face twisted as if he might weep at any moment, who was frantically clawing at the surface of my shield.
'Nothing personal. This is just 'work'.'
He thought he was hiding his body behind his shield in his own way, but the gaps on all sides were so numerous I hardly knew where to stab. So I swiftly thrust my spear along the path revealed by all my training and combat experience.
"Uwaaak—!"
My enemy's shield could not keep pace with my spear, and his neighbor could not cover the gap it left. The spearhead, darting in like lightning, pierced through his right shoulder without any resistance, sinking in softly.
'This is the opening.'
War belongs to the right-handed.
The enemy before my eyes screamed and fell, and simultaneously, my spear tip, which had already withdrawn from the fallen foe's body, pierced the right chest of the man beside him who was exposed by the fallen man's shield.
"Aaaagh—!"
[Puk—!]
'That one, I think he screamed before he was even stabbed?'
Did he have the blood of a Druid who could see his own future? Entertaining that incongruous thought for a moment, I continued to drive my spear like a beam of light into the gaps that opened in the enemy line as two men fell.
[Puk! Puk! Puk!]
Uwaaaaagh—!
The exaltation of war rose up to my chin, and a ringing tinnitus filled my ears. The existence of all things around me vanished, and it was as if nothing existed in this world but my spear, my shield, and myself. I was swimming freely through a gentle wave. And all others were merely caught up in that wave, not knowing what to do with themselves.
[Puk!]
"Ughak!"
Having pierced another waist and broken through the Angles' battle line and fighting spirit in an instant, my eyes caught the enemy leader. A face seated on a white horse far away, staring at me filled with terror and disbelief.
'Edmund, you were at the front when the battle started, but now, when people are dying in droves, you're just spectating from the rear!'
In truth, it was proper behavior for a king of a nation, but to me, already seized by the battle-madness, he looked like nothing more than a supreme coward.
"Edmund—! I am Helgi, son of Ragnar! Face me! I am your death!"
I expelled all the hot blood drawn from my entire body past my lungs in a roar, then reversed my grip on the spear in my hand and hurled it fiercely toward Edmund, who was startled and flustered by my shout.