23.
23.
We divided the wall into six sections.
It wasn't particularly meaningful, just that the six of us brothers each took one. The section I took was the second from the left, which had relatively recently undergone repairs—meaning it was the weakest spot.
"Don't loose your bowstring before the order! You must not loose your bowstring before the order!"
"Duck your head when the enemy's arrows fly! Raise your head when the enemy's ladders touch the wall!"
Both siege warfare and field battles had their various pros and cons.
But to skip all that and look only at the downsides of a siege, the biggest problem was that people who had no business being soldiers were dragged into the fight. For instance, the boy in front of me whose legs trembled so hard he looked about to piss himself any second, or the old man so ancient that the arm holding his weapon seemed ready to defy the commands of his mind at any moment.
'Should I have taken this to the open field?'
Times like this, doubt in myself reared its head. Logically, defending against an enemy with far more ships than we had was the sound decision.
'No, this is right. If I hold off Ælla's attack here, the eorls of Northumbria will have no choice but to reconsider. Crisis is opportunity.'
I knew, after all, that war is merely an extension of politics. I had no intention of losing to Ælla, and his downfall would begin once this battle ended. So this was a necessary fight, a necessary sacrifice and death.
"What is your name, brave Angle warrior?"
"Mīn... mīn eorl! I am Stān, eorl!"
I wasn't sure how he had ended up included in the rushed conscription for this siege. The boy, draped in a cloth armor that hung loosely to his knees because there was no gambeson that fit, wrung out every ounce of courage he had and answered stoutly.
"Stān? A fitting name. A name suited to a sturdy warrior like you. Take courage, young warrior. The enemy will never cross this wall."
"Thank you! Mīn eorl!"
His innocent eyes shimmered with emotion as he looked up at me, and a deep self-loathing washed over me.
'What did I just say to this kid?'
A more bitter feeling than the first time I had laid hands on a person's life.
But worry not, for am I not a body blessed by those vaunted traits and stats? My mind would not crumble over something like this. I could simply comfort myself with the usual excuses—it was unavoidable, such was the way of this age—and brush it off. That should be enough.
It should have been. Yet this time, I absolutely could not turn a blind eye. I did not want to do so.
Toward the young warrior whose moist eyes kindled a foolish bravado, I spoke lowly.
"Very well, brave Stān! I have an important task to entrust to you. Would you hear it?"
"Yes, y-yes!"
"Down below the wall, there will be men guarding the arrows and stones. I would like you to go there and lend a hand in stopping any enemy infiltration. Can you do that?"
Of course, there would be no such infiltration. Had we not meticulously inspected every crack in the wall? Unless there was some tunnel I didn't know about, but that seemed unlikely.
"Yes! Understood! My eorl!"
The innocent young warrior tensed up as he received my special order, then hurried down the wall with a resolute expression.
I watched his back, my heart not lightened in the slightest, and as I turned my gaze to the slowly churning enemy battle line, somewhere a crow's caw rang out unbidden.
To me, that sound felt exactly as if it were mocking me.
[Caw--- caw---]
'Laugh as much as you please, Odin. But this is what I must do.'
Don't be impatient. One by one. Change things one by one. First, settle the battle right in front of my eyes.
I repeated the mantra inwardly, shunting the dark feelings into a corner.
*****
[Bwoo-woong- bwoo-woong-]
The long, wailing blast of war horns echoed out.
Some time after Ælla and Osberht had returned to their camp, the Northumbrian host began their assault in earnest.
'You prepared extensively, Ælla.'
Just like when I had faced Edmund of East Anglia alongside Ivar and Sigurdr, the small siege engines we used could be built on the spot if we had the materials. However, ordinarily, as Ælla was demonstrating now, most siege engines were pre-built and brought along. Given the speed of their march, they had likely assembled them nearby and carried them over. Ladders enough to swarm the wall, a battering ram roofed with animal hides like a shed.
However, I saw no catapults. Those were trickier to operate than one might think, and monsters big enough to smash walls outright didn't exist in this era, so an urgent Ælla probably hadn't even considered them.
The Northumbrian host that came dragging these soldiers' toys was exceedingly confident, but our preparations were no less formidable.
Even if the enemy numbered well over twenty thousand, the number that could deploy onto this battlefield at once was limited. And we, too, had prepared some amusing toys for them.
"Sons of Northumbria! Attack! Attack—! Attack—!"
"Today we bring down that wall! Run, all of you!"
"In God's name—!"
"Long live Ælla!"
"Long live Osberht!"
The sight of thousands of men charging all at once with a deafening thunder of footfalls was terrifying.
Each Angle came running, crying God's name, or their native village, or the names of Ælla and Osberht.
But then, suddenly, the ground beneath their feet caved in, and the sharpened wooden stakes jutting up skewered fragile human flesh.
[Thud! Thud! Thud! Kwajik!]
"Aaaagh—!"
"A trap—! It's a trap!"
"Now! Loose!"
They would be caught between a rock and a hard place. To reach the wall quickly, they had to press forward, but doing so meant trampling over their comrades now fallen into the trap. The pitfalls arranged at precisely calculated distances provided our archers with comfortable targets, and soon the countless arrows loosed at Björn's command either pierced their intended marks or sought out the victims collapsed nearby and burrowed in.
[Hwik—! Hwik—! Hwik! Thud—! Peobeok!]
"Gah—!"
"Aaaaagh—!"
"Shields! Lift your shields!"
"Ignore the wounded! We must cross this now!"
If only that one stroke could have decided the battle.
The warriors of Northumbria were different from those of East Anglia. Even as their vanguard sank into the hollowed ground and became fodder for arrows, the Angles calmly raised their shields. The arrows flew unceasingly, but gradually the Angles endured the arrow storm, and at last, having overcome even the obstacles, they formed a tight mass and slowly closed in beneath the wall.
"Archers! Aim for the wall top! Don't let the enemy take easy aim with their bows!"
"What is the rear guard doing! Tell them to bring the ladders and the battering ram at once! Or I'll go myself and chop off every last one of their necks!"
Yes, once battle was joined, questions like what started this war and why we had to fight it were nothing but luxuries.
I had no idea who the Anglian commander below the walls was, but he clearly knew this fact very well. With cold, level-headed command, he had overcome our traps and soon built a solid shield wall beneath the ramparts.
But no matter how capable the enemy commander was, the fundamental truth of siege warfare was that the defender held the advantage. Now, in place of Björn's voice, lost and drowned in the chaos of battle, my own voice reached those who stood with me.
"Stones! Hurl stones down on them! Archers! Do not lose heart and keep shooting! Their arrows cannot pierce the walls!"
[Hyuk! Puk!]
"Aaargh!"
No sooner had I declared that the enemy's arrows could not pierce the walls than an arrow, flying in at a bizarre angle, embedded itself in the shoulder of an archer from Eoforwīc who had been diligently loosing shafts beside me.
I gently caught his body as it collapsed sideways from the pain and propped him against the wall, then picked up the fallen bow and arrow and immediately shot back in the direction the arrow had come from.
[Pong! Swaeeaek-!]
"Gaaargh!"
The arrow, which had lashed its tail and flown the moment my hand released the string, immediately burrowed into the eyeball of the enemy archer, but beside him, what must have been a hundred archers continued to release their strings.
[Hyuk-! Hyukhyuk! Tak- Tadak-!]
Fortunately, our own casualties relative to the incoming arrows were not so great.
Shooting downward from a high place was the more advantageous position, a perfectly natural truth guaranteed by gravity. Besides, we also had the walls the Romans had built. They were designed quite perfectly to block arrows.
"Jarl Helgi! The ladders are coming up!"
"Understood! Everyone, prepare yourselves! Steel your hearts!"
Many among the warriors of Árós deployed with me, and even among those hastily conscripted from Eoforwīc, were facing their first real battle. Even I, their commander, was experiencing a defensive siege for the first time.
So, fear was inevitable. Was it not said that all unfamiliar things are, at once, things to be feared?
"They're climbing! Ready—! Ready yourselves!"
"Archers, do not stop! Keep shooting! We have plenty of arrows and stones! Loose your strings until your hands split!"
High-ranking or low, all alike crouched behind the battlements, eyeing the ladders as one by one they thrust their heads over the walls.
Some with looks of anxiety, some with looks of resolve... each and every one bearing a fear they could not hide.
And my task was to breathe courage into them.
'Take courage, Helgi. You are the one who leads. You are Helgi Ragnarsson.'
"Hel- la-!"
Even amidst the chaos of the battlefield, my extremely sharpened senses informed me of the presence of an enemy climbing a ladder.
He was likely the bravest of them, the one who climbed this ladder first. But bravery does not always yield the best outcome.
[Huung- Peoseok!]
"Ghk!"
Unfortunately for him, the courageous warrior of Northumbria, whose name I would never know, had his shield splintered to pieces by the great war axe I brought cleaving down from above, and he plummeted.
"Aaargh-!"
"Waaargh!"
[Kung! Kung!]
Taking one unlucky Anglian below him along for the ride down, the falling warrior met the ground with a dull thud, and made no further movement thereafter.
"Uh-uh..."
And the third warrior on the ladder, whose turn had suddenly come, froze under my terrifying downward stare and could not move.
'Then I shall assist you personally.'
[Teop.]
"Hup-!"
The ladders crafted by Ælla and the Northumbrians, who knew the walls of Eoforwīc well, were just the right height, and made quite sturdy using considerably thick timber. But against me, it was a hopeless endeavor.
I seized the stout wood with both hands and began to push with all my might, and the ladder, loaded with several men, began—incredibly—to slowly tilt away.
[Kkiiiik-]
"Uh-uh- uhhh-!?"
'You're going to be quite badly hurt, I think.'
Just as the third Anglian, who had climbed highest, lost his faculty of speech at a situation his mind simply could not comprehend, the ladder finally tilted past ninety degrees and began to slowly fall toward the opposite side of the wall.
[Swaeeaek-!]
'Where do you think...!'
Whether there was a skilled one among those enemy archers, or it was mere chance, a single arrow flew toward my exposed upper body as I pushed the ladder, but my hand was quicker.
[Chak!]
'As if that would work.'
I contemptuously hurled the arrow, now meekly captive in my grip, down below the wall, and watched as the ladder that had been slowly tipping gathered speed and came crashing down between the clustered Angles.
[Kkiiiik- Kwajik!]
The sound of wood splitting, the impact of warriors leaping from the ladder and falling onto the shield wall of their comrades below.
On top of that, the arrows of our own archers raining down, the screams that followed... and the shouts of the enemy hurriedly directing the panicked warriors to other ladders.
"Wwaaah-! Valhalla-!"
"Helgi! Helgi of Árós!"
"Follow the Jarl! Lift your heads, you swine! I said face the enemy!"
"Follow the Earl! Slay all followers of the false Cyning!"
To breach a dam blocking a waterway, a single hole is sufficient. Even more so if the waterway held behind that dam happens to be a very, very fierce one.
Like a wildfire leaping up, my action served as an example to the warriors with me, instantly raising our army's morale.
Soon, a fierce fight erupted all along the walls between those seeking to climb over the ladders and those seeking to stop them.
An Anglian who hurled his body headlong, trusting only his armor and mass without a care for how sharp the blade in his opponent's hand was, and a Norseman who leaned too far out stabbing his spear down over the wall and, struck by an arrow from somewhere, plummeted.
Shield met shield, spear met spear, sword and axe clashed, while shouts calling upon their respective gods and the screams of the dead and the dying filled the entire space.
"Die, Norseman!"
"Die, Anglian!"
In that distant past, in the time when Dane and Svear, Angle and Saxon were neighbors facing one another, had our ancestors fought like this?
[Huuung-! Kwajik!]
Climbing another ladder and cleaving down mightily upon an enemy's head, I roared, my whole body surging with rising bloodlust.
"Warriors of Árós! Sons of Eoforwīc! We shall not retreat a single step! Slaughter them all!"
"Yiaaaa-!"
"Slaughter them all!"
"Odin-!"
"Lord!"
I sent yet another ladder down and immediately moved to the next.