Part 40 (1/2)
In a moment they closed over him, but I was there before they could get clear of one another to slay him. I cut my way through the turmoil before they knew I was on them, and stood over him sword in hand, while the Welsh shrank back for a s.p.a.ce with the suddenness of my coming. There was Algar also hewing at them and trying to reach my side, having dismounted, and those who followed Erpwald were on them with their long spears. It was more as a shouting than a fight for a moment or two, but Erpwald never moved, being stunned, as it seemed. It was like to go hard with me for a time, for my men could not reach me. Still, I held the Welsh back from Erpwald and myself.
There was a great shout of ”Ahoy,” and I saw from beyond the ring round me the rise and fall of a broad axe, and then Thorgils was at my back, and close behind him was Evan. More of our men were coming up fast to where they heard the noise; but the foe were minded to make a good fight of it, and only to yield when there was no shame in doing so.
”It is no bad thing to have a good axe at one's back,” quoth Thorgils in a gruff shout between his war cries as he hewed, and with that I heard the said axe crash on a foe again.
Then I had the chief before me, and his men fell back a little to make way for him to me. Our swords crossed, and I took his first thrust fairly on the s.h.i.+eld and returned it, wounding him a little, and he set his teeth and flew at me, point foremost, with the deadly thrust of the Roman weapon. That the s.h.i.+eld met again, and I struck out over his guard and he went down headlong. And at that his men made a wild rush on me, yelling. At that time I saw Thorgils, with a great smile on his face, smite one man to his right with the axe edge, and another on his left with the blunt back of the weapon as he swung it round, and Evan saved me from a man who was coming on me from behind. That is all I know of the fight, save that it seemed that I heard some cry for quarter, for of a sudden I went down across Erpwald for no reason that I could tell.
It was full daylight when I came round, and the first thing that my eyes lit on was the broad face of Erpwald, who sat by my side with a woebegone look that changed suddenly to a great grin when he saw me stir and look at him. Then I saw Evan also watching me, with his arm tied up, and I was fain to laugh at his solemn face of trouble.
Whereon from somewhere behind me Thorgils cried in his great seafaring voice:
”There now, what did I tell you two owls? His head is too hard to mind a bit of a knock like that.”
Then he came and laughed at me, and I asked what sent me over.
”The pole-axe man hit you with the flat of his unhandy weapon. It is lucky for you that he was a bungler, however, for there is a sore dint in your helm.”
I sat up and looked round the camp. There was a knot of captives in its midst, among whom was the chief I had fought, wounded, indeed, but not badly, and our men were eating the enemy's provender and laughing. A fire of green brushwood and heather was sending a tall pillar of smoke into the air to tell the watchers on the Poldens and at Watchet that we had done what we came to do. But here we had to stay till we heard from Ina that we were to join him, and for Erpwald's sake and Elfrida's I was not sorry.
He had seen his first fight, and nearly found his end therein. I do not know how I could have looked Elfrida in the face again had he indeed risen no more from that medley. But I thought that he made more than enough of my coming to his rescue. It was only a matter of holding back a crowd till help came.
”All very well to put it in that way, comrade,” said Thorgils; ”but where does my axe come in? You are not fair, for, by Thor's hammer, Erpwald, both of you had been mincemeat but for that.”
”Nay,” said I, laughing; ”you and I were those who held back the crowd. I could not have done it alone.”
”But you did, though,” the Norseman answered at once.
”Nevertheless, it was as well that I happened up in good time.”
Now we rode across the nearer hills until we could see into the fair valley which men call Taunton Deane since those days, and we saw the answering fires which told us that all was well at Watchet, for we had saved the little town. Not until Gerent learned how few we were here would he dare to divide his forces. Far off to the southward in the valley we could see the blue reek of his campfires, and it would seem that he had not yet moved on the Wess.e.x border.
All the day we waited and watched, anxious and restless, but no attack came on us here, and the smoke of the camp grew no thinner at Norton. A few Nors.e.m.e.n rode up to us from Watchet, and they said that no move was on hand yet, so far as they could tell. And at last, as the sun was setting, and shone level on the slope of the Poldens, above which the Tor of Glas...o...b..ry sent a waving wreath of smoke into the air to bid Wess.e.x gather against the ancient foe, we saw the long line of sparkling helms and spear points as our host marched from hill to causeway to the bridge that spans the Parrett.
Ina would hold the heights above Norton before morning.
But that made it the more needful that we should bide here till we were sent for, seeing that we guarded the flank of our advance; and hard it was to sit still and do it, with a battle pending yonder.
It was a long night to us, and hungry.
Early in the next morning there was heavy smoke on these hills that told of burning on the line of our march, and there was more away toward the far Blackdown hills, as if there were trouble beyond Tone. And in the afternoon there fell a strange stillness on the woods round us, and I wondered. There was never a buzzard or kite, raven or crow, left in all the woodland, and then I minded that overhead lately the birds of prey had all flown in one direction, and that toward where Norton lay.
It was the cry of the kite and the voice of the songbirds that I missed. The birds of prey had gone, and in the cover their little quarry cowered in fear of the shadow of the broad wings which had crossed them so often. Even now two of the great sea eagles were sailing inland, and from these strange signs we knew for certain that yonder a battlefield was spread for them, where Saxon and Welsh strove for mastery in the fair valley. But we must pace the hill crest, silent and moody, waiting for some sign that might tell us of victory.
That came at last in the late afternoon. Slowly there gathered, over the trees where Norton was, a haze that thickened into a smoke, and that grew into heavy dun clouds which rose and drifted even to the hilltops, for Norton was burning, and by that token we knew that Ina was victor.
Presently there were flying men of the Welsh who could be seen on the open hillsides, and some few came even up to this camp, and we took them, and from them heard how the battle had gone. It had been a terrible battle, from their account, but they knew little more than that, and that they were beaten. I suppose that Ina thought it best for us to hold this camp for the night, for here we bided, chafing somewhat; and but for what we took from the Welsh, hungry, until early morning. Then at last a mounted messenger came to us, and we went to Norton.
There, indeed, was high praise waiting for us from Ina, for it seemed that our work had checked the advance of Gerent, and had given time for full gathering of the levies before he was over the border. But now I learnt that there was another Welsh army in the field, beyond the Tone River, and until we heard how it fared with the Dorset levies in that direction it was doubtful if we might hold that all was well yet. Gerent had not set everything on this one attack, but had also marched on Langport across the Blackdown hills. Thither Nunna had led what men he could be spared, and was to meet the Dorset levies, whose ealdorman, Sigebald, had sent word to Glas...o...b..ry, soon after I left there, to tell of this attack.
In the late evening there were beacon fires on the Blackdown hills, and a great one on the camp at Neroche which crowns and guards the hills in that direction. And so presently through the dusk one rode into Norton with word of the greatest battle that Wess.e.x had fought since men could remember, for Nunna had met the foe on the way to Langport, and at last, after a mighty struggle which had long seemed doubtful, had swept them back across the hills whence they came, in full flight homeward. So there was full victory for Wess.e.x, but we had to pay a heavy price therefor. Nunna had fallen in the hour of triumph, and Sigebald, the ealdorman, was lost to Dorset also.
Presently we laid Nunna in his mound on the Blackdown hills where he had fallen. There he bides as the foremost of Saxon leaders in the new land we had won, and I do not think that it is an unfitting place for such a one as he. It is certain that so long as a Wess.e.x man who minds the deeds of his fathers is left the name of Nunna will be held in honour with that of the king; his kinsman.