88.
88.
Repelling Edmund's charge had been satisfying.
The various equipment and new combat methods we had prepared in the meantime had all worked better than expected, and I felt deeply gratified.
However, the enemy's momentum under Edmund's command had put me on alert.
The desperate sight of the enemy warriors truly throwing their lives away to climb the slope seemed to hint to me that this battle would by no means end easily.
Thus, the day after we had successfully repulsed Edmund's attack and passed the night.
As if all had fled from the horrific noise made by the humans the day before, tension began to churn once more in a space where no birdsong could be heard any longer.
Precisely at the moment the sun rose, the enemy host began to move as one.
[Buuuuung- buung- buuuuung-]
The distant, faint sound of horns. The warriors, who had simply taken their meal of hardtack, water, and dried jerky or fish, prepared once more for the approaching battle.
The warriors, every one of them with eyes grown sharp from the proper tension suitable for moving the body. The green recruits who had experienced their first battle the day before, and the veterans for whom this battle was their fiftieth.
Regardless of experience or age, the fear that any human inevitably feels. Due to emotions that willpower alone could not control, hands trembled finely, or eyes closed tightly and took deep breaths.
Yet all of them looked to one place and gained strength: the highest point of this hill. The giant figure standing beneath the pure white flag bearing only the face of Hel.
Their Konungr stood without a single tremor before the coming wave of enemies.
Seeing that sight, the warriors felt courage welling up from a corner of their hearts and once more inspected their weapons, shields, helmets, and armor.
Unaware that he was serving as the spiritual totem of the warriors, Konungr Helgi Ragnarsson was deconstructing the enemy's movements from the highest point of the hill with the vision of a hawk's eye. Beside him, Refil, who was attending the Konungr, and Leon, who was practically useless in combat, was working his pen as if to record the Konungr's every single move and gesture.
[-And so, the second day dawned on this hilly ground, named the Hill by the River Grant, and the enemy began to move at once. His Majesty the Konungr gave orders according to their movements from the highest point. On the faces of the Northmen who followed him was faith and hope, rather than fear and terror. I know little of Burgred Cyning who leads them-]
[Scritch- scratch-]
"At a glance, the equipment of those standing on the enemy's left wing is good. It seems Burgred intends to come at us in earnest today. Tell Oleg and Djur, who hold our right wing, to prepare thoroughly."
"Yes! Konungr!"
"Tell Sigebryht and Guthrum on our left wing, especially Guthrum, to act flexibly and proactively. He is rich in experience and will understand my meaning well. Tell him that if the enemy's attack seems to concentrate on the center or our right wing, he may instead push forward."
"Yes! Understood!"
[Chk! Chk! Chk! Chk!]
"Refil, the center is ready, I trust?"
"No problem! Konungr!"
"Seutorolpeu, the cavalry at the rear must be ready to charge out at any time."
"I shall tell them to prepare well, so the horses do not tire!"
"Good, good."
[Buuuuuuung-]
Fifteen thousand or seven thousand. I had been at the scene where far greater numbers of troops clashed in the Eastern Roman Empire, so I thought this many would be nothing.
But watching the enemy ranks approach as one to the sound of long horns was still an overwhelming experience.
War was the most brutal, but it was certainly the greatest art that drew people in. An art that no one should ever experience. But in this era, it was a daily occurrence. So if it must be done, it must be won at all costs.
I had made practically every preparation possible, but a person in the leader's position is always fearful. If I were just Soldier A facing the enemy with a sword, I would only need to think about how to kill the enemy... But as the one in the leader's position, I had to think about how to kill fewer of my own warriors and seize victory.
All that remained now was a contest of strength.
And so I, Helgi Ragnarsson, drew a full breath and mastered the flame rising already from within. For it was a time that required cold composure.
'This time too, the vanguard is Edmund's force.'
Edmund's warriors, who had charged in as if ready for death. Their appearance was like that of berserkers. This time, how sharp their attack, supported from all sides, would be—I could only know once I faced it.
[Urrrrrrr-!]
The figures of the enemy, which had looked like countless dots, gradually took shape, and as horn blasts and battle cries joined the trembling earth that felt like a landslide, the sensation of watching a silent film ceaselessly reminded me that this place was reality.
[Waaaaah-! Buuuuuuuuung-!]
"Come in as much as you like, Edmund. We are ready."
[In God's name-!]
[In God's name!]
[Yaaaaa!]
The enemy ranks, shouting with one voice, at last quickened their pace.
"Archers! Draw your strings!"
"Draw your strings-!"
"Prepare to loose!"
[Kiiiik- kiiik-]
The eyes of the Northmen, aiming their bowstrings at the enemy's vanguard, blazing like roaring flames, shone coldly.
"Now! Loose!"
"Release the strings!"
"Loose!"
[Psshyung! Psyu-psyung! Shwaaaaa-]
In an instant, the arrows, accompanied by a sound that carried a powerful tension, rained down all at once, and at last, the battle began in earnest.
*****
[Shwaeaeaeaek-! Thunk! Thwack-thwack!]
"Aaaaagh-!"
"Uwaaagh! Khk!"
"Khurrk- khurk--"
[Thwack!]
'Ngh...!'
An arrow carrying ferocious power flew in and embedded itself in the shield.
'What kind of arrow holds this much power...!'
A man whose very name meant Hunter, how could he not have drawn a bowstring at least once? He had simply never been on the receiving end, but what was certain was that the bows and arrows these Northmen used were something different.
"Raise your shields above your heads! Do not stop your stride! We shall die and reach the Lord's Heaven!"
"Yaaaaa!"
"For the Lord! For Heaven! Long live Edmund!"
"Brave warriors of the Angles! Forward!"
Hunta's throat was already hoarse from the charge made the day before, but now it was the middle of a charge where the state of his own throat mattered not at all.
The taste of blood seeped again from his overworked throat, but Hunta paid it no mind as he shouted and charged forward.
'Their rate of fire is fast. If we stand still, those arrows will kill us all.'
[Pyun- Pyupyut-! ... Shwaaaak!]
"Shields!!!"
"Raise shields!"
[Peok! Peobeobeok! Peobeok!]
"Aaaagh!"
Screams rang out from all directions as another volley of arrows poured down. It was an environment utterly impossible to adapt to, even having experienced it once before. Where in the world was there a man who could grow accustomed to an environment where death rained from the sky?
To pull the warriors out of this brutal setting, Hunta had no choice but to drive forward and pour every ounce of his strength into his voice.
"Charge! Charge! Keep moving!"
"Forward—! Forward!"
The Anglo-Saxon warriors, who like him had nothing left but rage and hearts consumed by vengeance, summoned their strength once more and rushed down the gentle slope. Soon, the enemy's shields came into Hunta's view, arrayed in a single orderly line.
Shields painted with red hammers, blue lightning, the face of a woman half-human and half-skeleton, a great tree and an eagle, and the like.
It was as if the heathen gods had gathered in one place to look down upon them. Yet Hunta sought the feel of the cross hanging from the necklace at his breast and summoned his courage once again.
"Form ranks! Form ranks! They're shooting wildly! Do not lower your shields! You must hold!!!"
[Peok! Shwaak- Peok! Peobeok! Shwaek- Shwaak-]
It was the same pattern as yesterday—once they closed to this distance, the enemy archers abandoned volley fire and loosed their arrows in a wild torrent. The accuracy dropped somewhat, but the oppressive weight of it only grew.
Yet they had already endured this once before. And all around them lay the traces of the comrades who had fallen yesterday. The Anglo-Saxon warriors, now driven past fear and into the realm of madness, rallied around Hunta and reordered their ranks. Soon, seizing the moment when the enemy fire slackened, they surged fiercely forward with Hunta at their head.
"Now! Charge! Kill them all—!"
"Yaaaaa—!"
"Kill them all—!"
This time, with the attack pressed not only by the center but also from the left and right wings, the enemy fire was indeed not as punishing as it had been the day before.
'No, perhaps I had simply grown accustomed to it.'
Whatever the case, what mattered now was breaking through the shield wall of the Norsemen.
'Huff— huff—'
His breath was already at the very edge of his throat, and his eyelids were flushed red from the blood rushing to his feverishly excited head, but Hunta could not stop.
For behind him, the Mercian host was advancing on their heels.
'Once the Norsemen are dealt with, I will surely... exact the blood-price from you as well. Mercia...'
Did the Anglo-Saxons standing on this field not know? That the Mercians were using them.
Once this battle was over...
But he had scarcely a moment to nurse such bitter and resentful thoughts. The arrow fire soon slackened, and at last the heathen shields loomed near.
Having struck aside the spears thrust out between the tall, broad shields like a flash of lightning, Hunta put all his strength into his sword hand, hurled his whole body against the enemy shields, and cried out.
"Long live Edmund! Long live Anglia!"
"Long live the Anglo-Saxons!"
"Yaaaa!"
[Kung! Kukung! Peok! Keok! Kung! Puk!]
Beginning with Hunta, who had run the fastest, the warriors of Anglia crashed against the enemy line like a wave.
Their struggle was dazzling to behold, but battle was not something that could be won by will and spirit alone.
And when the Norsemen they faced possessed will and spirit no less formidable than the Anglo-Saxons' own, hoping for a miracle was far too cruel a thing to ask.
"Push—! Push!"
"Yaaaap—!"
They pushed with all their might, but the wall did not budge. The barrier of the Northmen was simply too solid for the Anglo-Saxons, who had already expended no small measure of strength just to run this far, to force back.
[Puk! Pupuk!]
"Keok!"
"Aaaagh!"
What was more, the Northmen, moving with the cold precision of machines, behaved exactly as they had been trained—at the signals of their seasoned captains, they deliberately opened their wall where the enemy's momentum flagged, thrust out their spears, and felled the Anglo-Saxons with every stab.
Soon the gentle slope was stained with the screams and war cries of the Anglo-Saxons and the blood they had shed. Hunta, who felt every sight and sound with his two eyes and two ears, wept tears of blood within his heart as he more desperately drove his blade over their shields and kicked at the barrier. But he could achieve nothing.
[Buuuuuum- Buung- Buung-]
Then came the sound of three horn blasts, reaching the ears of the Anglo-Saxon warriors.
At the signal once again ordering retreat, Hunta's eyes blazed red, and he looked back behind him with the bewildered expression of a man who had just heard something unbearable. But he was soon forced to hear the shout of the Mercian Ealdorman, who was pressing forward using them as his shield.
"Warriors of Anglia, fall back! Your brave struggle shall be remembered!"
"We shall break through from here! To the rear! Make for the rear!"
[Adeudeuk-]
Whose blood had opened this path?
Looking around, he saw everywhere Anglo-Saxon warriors fallen in gruesome heaps, and warriors who had been devoured by madness, left only to swing their spears blindly.
'I will surely... kill every last one of you.'
"Retreat... fall back...! Warriors of East Anglia! Retreat—!"
[Hwik- Puk!]
"—Keok!"
'The first rule of the hunt. Never forget your composure. If you let out your breath, you endanger yourself.'
Why did the words of his father, who had departed this world long ago, come to mind only now? He had been a cold father, overly fond of drink, but on their first and last hunt together, he had spoken to Hunta in that low, quiet voice.
'Ah... fool...'
On the tip of the spear that had pierced through his stomach, strange letters of some unknown script were carved.
"Keuk... keureuk...!"
[Puuk—!]
Another sharp thing stabbed through his back and withdrew. Feeling the spear that had run through his belly pull free again, Hunta collapsed to the ground.
'Cyning, my Cyning...'
In his dimming sight, as his eyes slowly closed, he saw the Anglo-Saxon warriors fleeing in disarray and the Mercian warriors advancing through the hail of arrows.
Before he lost consciousness for the last time, Hunta—the brave warrior who had crossed blades with the Northern Dragon and lived—let out his final breath with the wish that every last Mercian and Norseman would die.