12.
12.
[huuung-!]
The spear I hurled with all my strength tore through the headwind with a shrieking sound, tracing a long parabola as it flew precisely toward Edmund.
[ihihihing-!]
Whether it intended to save its master's life, or was simply startled by Edmund's too-tight grip on the reins, the white horse—oblivious to the spear speeding toward it and reacting only to the pressure on its neck—reared up forcefully, thrusting its forelegs into the spear's path.
[peoseok!]
"Ughk!"
The spearhead, which had crushed the soft belly hide of the unresisting white horse without any resistance, finally severed the poor creature's backbone and did not lose its force. Only when it reached the torso of the man behind it did the shaft tremble and expend its remaining power.
"Cyning! Edmund Cyning! Come to your senses!!"
"Protect the Cyning! Quickly!"
The power in the spear must have been considerable, for it passed right through the animal's body. From a distance, I could see a mess of blood—indistinguishable whose—pooling on the ground around Edmund, who had one leg pinned beneath the fallen horse.
The moment their king fell to my unexpected throw, Edmund's bodyguards fell into a collective panic. Even as they heaved aside the white horse, streaming crimson gore, they formed a shield wall to protect against me.
'As if I'd let you off that easily.'
Just as Scipio of old Rome had once opened a path for elephants when facing Hannibal, the Angles around me could not stand their ground; all of them struggled to flee from my sight with terror in their eyes.
Then again, every time my arm moved, it had drawn blood. Unless a man possessed extraordinary courage, asking peasants to face me was too harsh a demand. I soon kicked off the ground and ran forward to end this senseless slaughter.
"Those who block my way will all die!"
I snatched up my shield again, nicked all over from the peasants' clumsy but desperate spear thrusts, and took hold of the hand axe tucked at my right hip. I gripped it softly yet surely, like wringing out laundry.
Before I could even feel the strength rising from my right forearm, an unknown Angle's blood—trickling down my helmet—wetted my eyebrows. In that same instant, a warrior's spear thrust right before my eyes was stopped by my shield.
[tang!]
Setting aside the dull impact and the resistance I felt in my left arm, I carried my forward momentum and kicked out the sole of my foot against the cross-adorned shield.
[kkwang! udeuk!]
"Argh!"
With the sound of the shield shattering, the brave Angle warrior's left arm flopped in a direction it was not meant to bend. I left the warrior who fell on his backside, clutching his broken arm and curled up, and now the figure of Edmund, being helped onto a fresh horse by his attendants, was perfectly revealed to my sight.
"Edmund...!"
If a man's words had the power to kill, Edmund would have died long ago from the name I just spat out.
"Stop him! Protect the Cyning!"
"In God's name!"
"Die, barbarian!"
It seemed they had put some thought into their so-called bodyguards. Unlike the peasants dying behind them even now, these warriors who all thrust their blades at me were well equipped.
'Who's calling who a barbarian?'
[hwik! peoseok! hwik! tak!]
I flicked my axe in a short chop at the spear thrust by the closest bushy-bearded warrior, sending his head flying, and then swatted away another spear coming from behind with my shield.
[huuung-! ppagak!]
"Aaagh!"
My axe, swung with full strength, smashed the nameless warrior's shield like splitting wood and lodged into his wrist at an exquisite angle. Left with no choice, I forcefully drew the sword my father gave me from my left hip.
[chaeng!]
Caught by a ray of sunlight that broke through the clouds at an uncanny moment, the silver-gleaming blade distinctly bore the letters [Ulfberht VLFBERHT].
"Huu- hup!"
Edmund's warriors abandoned their cut spear shafts and each drew their sidearms. I seized that brief moment to instantly steady my breath. And then I dealt the strike.
[seogeok!]
I slashed down in one motion across the throat of the warrior who had been glaring murderously from behind his half-shattered shield.
'I don't die from a glare alone, warrior.'
Then I turned my body and deflected the blade aimed at my waist with my shield, and
[ting! puk!]
I plunged the smooth blade without hesitation into the exposed right side of the chest.
"Urgh...! Grrk...!"
After meeting the eyes of the warrior frothing blood to the very end, I withdrew the blade that had entered horizontally, avoiding bone, and again caught the stabbing spearhead that followed.
[jureuk-! jureuk-! chaeng!]
Perhaps I had struck a vessel. Leaving behind the warrior who collapsed in streams of blood from the wound my sword had left, this time I did not push away the skilled spear blade that persistently targeted my blind spot.
Rather, I calmly kept it on my blade, then grabbed the shaft of the thrust spear near its head with my shield hand and yanked it forward in an instant.
"Huh!?"
[ppagak! udeudeuk!]
"Kuk!"
A warrior never releases the hand holding his weapon. Reality is not a martial arts novel... But that ironclad rule proved poisonous for the nameless warrior. Unable to overcome my sudden pull, his body lost balance, and I struck his neck with the pommel of my sword with all my might.
[teolsseok!]
"Huu—"
After felling three men in a single breath, only one remained before me. The surrounding shouts were all those of Northmen; only screams and flight were permitted to the Angles. What could soldiers whose formation had collapsed possibly do?
This battle was over.
'Edmund...'
Leaving behind the white horse collapsed on the ground, vomiting bright red fluid, Edmund on a brown horse was fleeing the battle madly with a dozen escorts.
"...Lord, protect us."
"Stop, warrior. The battle is over."
Amidst only the groans of fallen warriors and the wailing of fleeing soldiers, the lone warrior remaining before me steadied himself, seeking his god.
He crouched properly to secure the spring in his body, raised his shield just high enough not to obstruct his vision, and the spearhead aimed at me did not waver. This warrior, like the three who had fallen, was a fine warrior.
"...The sword of the Lord does not turn its back on the enemy. Heathen...!"
"..."
The words, 'Then what about your king fleeing over there?' rose to the tip of my tongue, but I simply nodded and slowly approached the brave warrior blocking my path.
"Hoo— urat!"
What did the warrior think in that moment, seeing the Norseman stained in blood from head to toe slowly approach him? Perhaps of his family somewhere in this land? Or his deceased father? If not, then the safety of the king who had abandoned him and fled? Or, God?
[Hwoong—! Bbeok!]
"Ugh!"
But whatever thought or resolve he had must not have lasted long. The straight, forceful thrust was truly a flawless strike with no fault to be found — yet the opponent he faced was no ordinary man.
We walked through time at different speeds; how could he possibly land that slow spear on me?
Lightly weaving out of the spear tip's straight trajectory, I drove the shield in my left hand down onto the warrior's forehead, and with a dull sound he collapsed to the earth like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
[Teolsseok!]
With that blow, I finished off the shield, which was now cracked all over, and tossed it carelessly onto the ground. I had cut and stabbed a few men, yet the sword's edge was still alive; I roughly shook the blood off the blade.
[Hwik- hwik-]
"We've won—! We've won—! Sound the horn of victory! Let Odin know of this triumph!"
[Buuuu-woong-]
"Aaaaaargh—! Valhalla—!"
"Freyr! Tyr—!"
"Hel—!"
These men who had shown such extreme composure and restraint before the battle now tasted blood and howled at the sky like beasts.
'Good grief.'
Among them were Hrolf, his white hair and white beard showing here and there, and the promising Styrbjörn, but more than anyone it was the overall commander Ivar, covered head to toe in gore, who was gleefully blowing the horn.
Watching that scene, I quietly knelt and placed my hand upon the earth.
"Hel. I dedicate this victory to you. Please look after my mother."
Praying for the safety of my family after ruthlessly slaughtering the sons of others—wasn't that a laughable thing?
But what was there to hide? This was the 800s, the world I lived in.
I felt the warmth of the earth, soaked with the blood of the fallen, and then I rose and strode toward Ivar. This had been only the first battle, after all. There was still much to do.
*****
At the same hour that Edmund of East Anglia clashed with Ivar's vanguard, Ealdorman Eadbert of Dover in the Kingdom of Kent received an unwelcome guest.
"Lord, dear God..."
The image of those twenty longships poking their heads over the white cliffs was still so vivid—and now even more ships had come.
[Deng-! Deng-! Deng-! Deng-!]
His already troubled mind grew even dizzier from the frantic clanging of bells.
"Will someone stop that bell?"
"Yes, Ealdorman Eadbert."
[Deng- deng- deng- ...]
The frantic bell faded, and Eadbert had to hastily organize his tangled thoughts as he watched the longships draw gradually closer.
'Wessex cannot help us right now. The king is clinging to life by a thread, and two winters have already passed since his brother set out for Winchester...'
Moreover, word had come that the Walha were stirring again on Wessex and Mercia's western frontier, and the iron mace wielded by Ella the tyrant of Northumbria had at last summoned a great catastrophe from the east.
'Lord, have mercy, I beg you. Have mercy...'
The Kingdom of Kent had long since lost the strength to stand against the Northmen who struck like lightning. All this old Ealdorman, who could see his death approaching, could do now was toy with the token of trust left behind by the Jarl of the Northmen who had come before—
the lustrous amber ring carved with unknown patterns.
*****
It had been a great victory. Scores of our own had died or been wounded, but the Angles lost roughly three hundred on the battlefield alone and their force disintegrated. I didn't know how Edmund would come at us next, but we, Ivar's vanguard, had certainly seized the momentum in East Anglia.
"You fought like Thor and Tyr from the myths I heard as a child, Helgi."
Clearing the battlefield was, after all, the victor's privilege. After a long while of howling in frenzy, what awaited us weary men was the soldier's alpha and omega: digging.
I could not go along with Ivar's suggestion that we collect only those bound for Valhalla and our wounded, and leave the enemy corpses for Odin's messengers, the ravens, to feast upon. Invoking 'a warrior's honor,' I insisted that those who had fallen to our spears and swords be gathered and buried together as well. I myself took the lead, digging the pit for their burial and carrying the bodies.
My brothers and comrades-in-arms, who had at first watched with puzzlement, seemed moved by the sight of me silently doing the work. They quietly set down their weapons, came to my side, and helped with the aftermath. They could have pretended not to see. Thanks to them, the task was finished smoothly. When all this was over and we returned to Árós, I would have to give them each at least a silver coin as a gift.
Of course, they must have pocketed anything that glittered while handling the corpses—so their extra income would be sweet. Ah, but they were all peasants, so there probably wasn't much.
These men might not understand why I went to such troublesome lengths, but I— a cultured man from the 21st century—knew, didn't I?
If those corpses were left as they were, the local waters could be fouled, and worse, plague could spread. So I did it for that reason as well. And also to comfort the souls of the fallen.
Our warriors would be taken into Valhalla; theirs would be gathered by the Lord.
At any rate, once we had roughy finished the work, we were washing our dirtied bodies and gear at the nearby water's edge. As I've said before, Northmen cannot abide filth.
Likewise, I waited my turn while the warriors washed one by one, and only went down to the stream when I was the last. In moments like this, I felt fortunate that this place was not a desert but the island of Britain, where rain fell all the time.
Ivar, who had been closely watching my every move beside me for a long while, seemed seized by some whim and chose to bathe alongside me, the very last in turn.
We splashed water at each other and even sprayed water back onto our freshly rinsed bodies.
All that time I had spent only on duels and domain administration, unable to enjoy a proper childhood— it struck me then with a faint, lonely feeling that only on campaign like this was I splashing in the water with my brother.
"I heard you cut down ten men with a single stroke. Is that true?"
"...Where on earth is that story going around? How could a man cut down ten at once?"
I paused for a moment, baffled by the question, and Ivar, watching me answer, smiled softly and threw a playful arm around my shoulders—though he had to stand almost on tiptoe since I was much taller.
"No, no. You're even greater than that, Helgi. I've fought for years, but I've never seen a warrior shatter the enemy's ranks in an instant the way you did. You finished Edmund, Helgi."
The anticipation glinting in Ivar's eyes was a little burdensome.
When I bashfully turned my head away, Ivar's great laughter spread to everyone around, and the warriors who had made camp on a hill a little distance from the battlefield all laughed together, shouting my name at the top of their lungs.
At that sight, a quiet laugh escaped me too.