137.
137.
"Iyaaa-!"
[Puk!]
"Guk- Geureuk- You son of a bitch-! Odin! Watch me!"
"Die! Die!"
[Kkuuk- Kwak-]
"Die- Aaak! Aaak!"
"Valhalla-!"
A Norseman warrior, too broken to hold himself upright, had a spear driven into him, but instead he pulled that same spear and stabbed out both eyes of the Pict warrior.
While such brutal fighting erupted everywhere, around Ivar 'the Boneless' Ragnarsson it was as if flowers of blood never ceased blooming.
[Shwiik-! Seuk- Chwahak!]
"Keok!"
He bent his waist back halfway to evade the spear thrust with all its force, and straightening his body at once, his blade sliced upward at an angle; his enemy's head fell away.
Far to the east, beyond where Helgi had passed, the curved sword he had bought from the lands of the horse-riders danced in Ivar's grip.
[Seuk- Chwahak! Aaak! Seuk-]
Without a shield, a sword in his right hand and a dagger in his left, Ivar evaded enemies' attacks like an acrobat, ceaselessly cutting and slashing at every exposed gap.
The battlefield's ruined shape reflected in Ivar's eyes.
A fight filled only with furious shouts and screams, with no rule to be found.
'At this rate...'
"Iyaaaa-!"
[Hook-! Seuk-]
"I'm stabbing God right now-! Lightly deflecting the spear that comes in with full advertisement."
[Peok! Chwahak-]
"Aaaak!"
As if butchering meat, his blade cleaved straight down from above, and two forward-thrust arms fell away from the body.
"Aaak-!"
[Puk!]
"-ak!"
To ease the pain, he drove his sword into the man's chest.
Ivar continued his thought.
'It truly was you who was strong, Helgi. Just look at this mess now. What wolf and what flock of sheep? Without Helgi, we would have done nothing but keep up this miserable kind of fight.'
And he would have died meaninglessly.
Since long ago, Ivar had never believed his father or the older generation of warriors who spoke as if Valhalla was everything.
Glory in death, my ass.
That was why he had roamed the wider world instead. Across the eastern sea, he wandered the vast lands, met the horse-riders, and met the turbaned ones beyond them.
He had met Olaf, a kindred friend, and traded with the treacherous kings of Ireland.
If not for his father's sudden death, he would have sailed even further.
Ivar chose to live splendidly rather than die splendidly.
His son Baldr, who had inherited this same borderline-tangential nature from himself, was swinging his sword with vigor.
Block and cut. The most basic of fundamentals, learned from the moment teeth first emerge.
His overall form resembled that of his eldest brother Björn, who had practically raised his son in place of himself while he roamed abroad. Yet the fluidity and boldness in the blows he unleashed were unmistakably those of 'the Boneless.'
'You will surpass me, son.'
Though still raw, Baldr was the same age as Refil. Barely twenty.
At his age, he had every right to pride, but...
If in Ivar's own generation there had been the great warrior Björn Ragnarsson, the monster set in his son's generation was Helgi Ragnarsson.
Frankly speaking, he was the greatest warrior in all of Norse history, a man a hundred or a thousand of whom not even his father or Björn could match.
He had trained with and watched the fighting of his father and Björn... but it was not that they were lacking; it was simply that Helgi existed in a different class.
What was even more frightening was that Helgi was no simple brute who could only fight.
When someone is so overwhelmingly superior, no rivalry rises. Only awe remains.
Baldr was, of course, rational and composed in the attacks he launched now, but Ivar knew well that within him dwelled a heart like a volcano.
The blazing red heart passed down to Ragnar's sons was, after all, wrath.
Probably, had there been no Helgi, even if those of his own generation might not have, in Refil and Baldr's generation they would have beaten and fought among themselves.
In that regard, how broad was the discernment—and the heart—of Björn, who had laid down his birthright.
'I cannot surpass Björn, after all.'
Yet losing could feel this joyful.
Ivar did not hide the laughter welling up.
"Come to me, warriors of the Picts! Here stands Beinlausi!"
The ranks had already collapsed, and now they were entangled in an endless chain of one-on-one duels.
An unending series of battles that would only end when one side was completely dead or fled.
This was the kind of fight his father and he had originally known. This lowly, messy thing was warfare before Helgi Ragnarsson.
Feeling a deep nostalgia, Ivar immersed himself deeper into the fight.
[Chaeng! Teok-]
He deflected the thrusting sword with the blade in his right hand, hooking the leg to trip his foe.
"Keuack!"
[Puk!]
"Guk-!"
He drove the dagger in his left hand into the chest of the off-balance enemy, then immediately rolled on the ground to evade a spear stabbing down.
[Puk! Seogeok!]
"Aaaak!"
[Chwahak-]
He cut both ankles to match their eye levels, and as he rose, he sliced upward at an angle, severing the neck.
"Geureuk-"
Stepping off the ground thick with pooled blood, Ivar tightened his grip on the sword and dagger in both hands.
"Beinlausi! We must withdraw!"
As Ivar, searching for another enemy to unleash his insatiable wrath, moved to step forward, a familiar voice caught him.
"Hvíti! You've aged! What do you mean, withdraw! When things are this tangled, there is no pulling back!"
"Yaaaa-!"
[Chaeng! Puk!]
"Euk!"
With an economical motion, he deflected the axe and thrust in his dagger.
As Ivar dispatched another warrior to Valhalla, a Norseman with a weighty two-handed axe slung over his shoulder appeared beside him.
A warrior whose snow-white beard was bespattered with blood. It was Ivar's old friend, Olaf.
"These bastards are not like the ones we've faced before! The warriors can't hold out like this! I don't see Ketil or Thorfinn!"
"Ketil and Thorfinn?"
The aged Ketil of the Isles' petty kingdom and Thorfinn of Orkney. Both had been at the head of the warriors they had each brought, and would have been exposed directly to Scotland's charge.
"... Damn it! Baldr! Baldr!"
Beside Olaf, Tostein, his already red hair thoroughly stained with blood, was breathing raggedly.
If Ketil was dead, Tostein—born of Olaf and Ketil's daughter—would have to lead the petty kingdom of the Isles, which had no male heir.
"Father!"
Baldr, who had hurried over at the call of himself, wore a face still filled with the excitement of battle—though his gaze alone was calmly settled.
"I cannot see Ketil or Thorfinn! As Olaf says, we are fighting the fight they want! Pull back the ranks and regroup! Sound the horn!"
"Understood!"
At the overall commander's order, the commanders nodded as one and scattered in all directions.
Soon, the long sound of war horns blared from all across the battlefield.
[Buuuung-]
[Buuuuu-]
"Retreat! Retreat!"
"Kill them!"
"Fall back! Fall back!"
"Valhalla-!"
But the warriors already buried in the noise and madness of the battlefield carried on with their own fights, and only those whose wits were still intact began to slowly pull back at the signal.
"Shield-wall—! Form a shield-wall, quickly!"
"Tighten up! Do not break formation!"
Soon, warriors who had been scattered and fighting all around rallied around the great banner of Hel that Ivar had thrust into Baldur's hands. Centered on that, the warriors who had roamed the world together with Ivar formed the core and established a solid shield-wall.
"Jarl Ivar! Jarl Ivar!"
"Thorkell! You're alive!"
Thorkell, his handsome brown beard smeared with dirt and blood here and there but with both arms, both legs, and his torso all intact—seeming to have no serious injury—merged in from the right flank.
Since he was a close friend of my dear little brother Halfdan, I had been worried; this was a relief, a fortunate thing.
But the news that came from Thorkell's mouth was far from pleasant.
"Konungr Ketill has fallen! I gathered the surviving warriors and am leading them here!"
'So it came to that. Flat-nose Ketill. When we meet again in Valhalla, let us share a drink.'
The sharing of grief could be done later.
For now, we had to first block the enemy pressing in.
Ivar, who had already surveyed the terrain beforehand, made up his mind swiftly.
"Listen well! We withdraw skirting the hills! If they do not give up, we fight and pull back, and repeat! Turn your backs and flee, and you'll only be hunted down! The fight is not over yet! Valhalla awaits us!"
"Valhall-a!"
"Tyr! Watch over my fight!"
"Hel-!"
The warriors, their anger stoked and morale soaring precisely because of the death of the Konungr they had served for so long, followed Ivar's words. They planted their shields firmly and began to pull back step by step.
The shields were far smaller than the large shields Helgi had introduced, but they were round shields well-suited for mobility.
Finally, having even committed the reserves he had so carefully husbanded, Causantín bellowed at the top of his lungs from atop his horse toward the retreating Norsemen.
"Capture their leader and kill the rest! This land is our land! The land our forefathers walked! Warriors of the Picts! The Lord is with us!"
Under Causantín's command, the Pictish warriors—who had already flung away any concept of formation in their first charge—surged forward with howls and heated spirit.
"Kill them all!"
"The Lord is with us!"
"Kill the heathens!"
[Yaaaaaa-!]
"Shields ready! Shields ready!"
"Prepare for the charge!"
"Val-hall-a-!"
The Pictish warriors came surging in like madmen.
Since they had already seized the advantage once in a great battle, their momentum as they charged again seemed as though it could split the heavens.
But the situation was far worse than they imagined.
The final hand Causantín had so ambitiously drawn, the advance of his finest reserves, was blocked by the disorderly charge of his own allies. They themselves did not realize it, swallowed up as they were by the madness of war.
And the warriors who had already been fighting a grueling brawl for nearly two hours were exhausted.
On top of that, the space onto which Ivar had so exquisitely withdrawn had a gentle slope, so that now the Norsemen looked down from above.
Naturally, the valiant charge of the Picts was brought to a halt.
[Yaaaaaa! Thwack! Thwack thwack! Thud! Thud thud!]
"Urk!"
"Aack!"
"Lord-!"
The sound of wood striking wood, the sound of spear-points piercing places not well, the sound of bodies being ruined—all of it instantly filled every space, and immediately after, war cries and screams followed.
To put it plainly, a charge is a thing that becomes rather dangerous if it fails to push the enemy back in a single stroke.
The Picts clamored before the shield-wall of the Norsemen, who had stopped their backward steps and planted themselves firmly in place, but nothing came of it except an extreme congestion; they simply could not push forward at all.
"Kill them!"
"You barbarians!"
"Kill them all! Don't be pushed back!"
"Keep stabbing with your spears!"
"We must hold!"
It was around then that Causantín, watching the scene from the low hill, flew into a rage.
"Wh-why...! Why can you not drive back a handful of enemies!"
Still, the numerical advantage was unmistakable; if only we had a little more time, we could finish them off. Those fellows in their heavy armor would never be able to shake off the Pictish light infantry.
The moment the calculations in Causantín's head were roughly wrapping up, a sound that should never have reached this place was heard from far behind.
[Buuuuuuung- Buuuuuuung-]
That damnable sound.
The sound of the Norsemen's horn. A sound that swelled more magnificently than any horn sound heard so far now reached this place, following the red trail of the setting sun.
Causantín and his guards turned their heads in flustered dismay.
Then, they could first hear the sound.
[Dugudugudugudugu-]
The vibration that shuddered the earth's very axis grew ever more violent and closer.
Causantín could not believe it.
*****
[Yaaaaaa-!]
The noise of the battlefield was heard from far away.
As if answering the horn Stórolf had blown with all his might, the sound that had reached us faintly like an echo grew steadily closer and clearer.
'Let us not be too late.'
[Dugudugudugudugu- Prrrrt- prrrrt- prrrrt-]
In truth, horses and men alike were all at their limits.
Camembert, who turned out to be a remarkable beast, still seemed not in the least fazed, but even the enduring horses of the Norse and Northumbrian breeds were gradually beginning to feel the strain.
And, of course, the riders seated upon them were all on the verge of death as well.
But none of them let it show.
Our brothers were waiting for us.
"My riders! The battlefield awaits us! All of you, prepare for battle!"
"Helgi Ragnarsson-!"
"Long live Konungr Helgi!"
"Prepare to charge-!"
At my loudly ringing voice, the riders responded all at once.
My bodyguard, who had been with me since East Anglia, and the riders levied from Northumbria.
The bodyguard had already become veterans who had experienced mounted combat; the Northumbrian riders were still clumsy, but—
It did not matter, as long as I was the one leading them.
"Do not be afraid, even if you stand alone! For then you will have already arrived in Valhalla! Let us ride only for glory!"
[Dugudugudugu-]
Once we crested the gentle rise, the entire battlefield unfolded before us.
Both those pressing in and those holding them off were a total mess, but the shield-wall of those holding them off was familiar.
'You held well.'
"Let us go-!"
"To battle-!"
"Follow the Konungr!"
"Helgi Ragnarsson! Helgi Ragnarsson!"
The warriors and I spurred our horses hard and resolved to first deal with the small number of enemy cavalrymen who were staring at us in a daze.