‘Ector…’ Arthur began, and Merlin bowed his head solemnly.
‘Died like the hero he was and will take a place of honour in the halls of the gods. We do not have time to tarry here. Ida yet lives. He will retreat to Bernicia, and we must pursue him. Octha strikes in the south and the war has only just begun. I raised this army travelling through the western kingdoms, just as you did on your march south, and it’s as well I came when I did. To war, Arthur, this is but the first battle. We must fight on and keep fighting until the war is won.’
Arthur hauled himself to his feet, Ida’s stone sceptre in one hand and Excalibur in the other. Ector was dead and Lunete missing, and the pain of their loss cut Arthur deeper than any enemy blade. Dead men’s blood soaked the battlefield, and the injured moaned and writhed amongst a field of corpses where ravens circled. Arthur had become a leader of warriors, and had won the battle of river Glein, but he shuddered at the fervour in Merlin’s eyes, because the druid was right. Arthur’s wars had only just begun.
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Prologue
989ad
The drakkar warship sliced through an iron-grey sea. Its clinker-built timbers flexed with the rise and fall of the white-tipped waves, and the ship’s prow-beast snarled and cut its way across the Whale Road towards the Saxon coastline, as sleek and swift as an eagle diving for its prey.
Skarde Wartooth heaved on the tiller, feeling the strength and power of the Sea God Njorth in the resistance beneath his hand. He tossed his head back, enjoying the fresh chill of icy sea spray on his face as the wind whipped his long hair behind him like the pelt of a wild beast. He checked to his port where two similar drakkars kept pace with him, crashing and slicing through the surging sea, each one filled with four score of warriors. Skarde’s warships darted towards the lands of the Saxons, where a gap showed in the shadow-shrouded promontory of its hills and cliffs. There, the country opened up into a wide estuary where a river yawned its mouth open to pour its waters into the wide sea. Skarde steered for that estuary and the river beyond, the watery roadway which would allow him to sail his shallow-draughted warships along its meandering course and deep into the heart of Saxon Britain. He thought this part of the island of Britain was the old Kingdom of East Anglia, which was now part of the larger Kingdom of Wessex and nascent Kingdom of the English. But it didn’t matter if it was East Anglia or Wessex. Skarde just wanted to kill Saxons. He reached for the small iron spear amulet at his neck and touched the metal for luck. Most men worshipped Thor, Njorth, or Týr. Skarde, however, worshiped Odin, the father of the Gods and Lord of Valhalla. Odin was the vicious and malevolent God of battle and victory. He was both cunning and fierce. Skarde closed his eyes, and in his mind’s eye he saw Odin riding through the heavens on his eight-legged horse, Sleipnir, with the two crows Huginn and Muninn, thought and memory, perched on each of his broad shoulders.
‘Hear me, All-Father,’ Skarde whispered. ‘Bring me battle luck, make my axe red with the blood of Saxon warriors. If I die, great Odin, let it be with blade in hand so I can join your Einherjar in Valhalla, and fight alongside you forever, until the day of Ragnarök.’
The ships banked towards the coastline and the wind whipped the sails, snapping the cloth taut and surging the warship forwards. It was late spring, which for men who went a-viking meant it was time to leave their wives and families and take to the ships in search of wealth and glory.
‘If this is the right river, then there’s a Saxon burh close to the coast,’ Ulfketil Flatnose shouted above the din of the sea.
‘Those old fortresses are rotting. The Saxons are lazy. Their King is weak, he usurped his brother and their earls are not united. I want to fight their warriors. My axe longs to drink their blood and test their mettle. We make for the burh,’ said Skarde. His uncle, Arne, had lived in the north of Britain for a time: in the Kingdom of York, which, until recent times, had been under the control of Vikings for many years in the Danelaw. Arne had told Skarde of the burhs, that network of fortresses built by King Alfred the Great, and expanded across the country by his warrior daughter Æthelflæd. Alfred built burhs to counter the threat of raiding Danes and other Vikings, to provide a chain of fortresses across the lands of the Saxons where local people could flee and enjoy the protection of Saxon swords and spears. The Great Heathen Army of Ivar the Boneless had taught the Saxons to fear Viking blades and had carved out a kingdom within the Saxon lands which had endured until the death of Erik Bloodaxe, thirty-five years earlier. Æthelred II was King of Wessex, Mercia, East Anglia and Northumbria now, which meant he was the King of what the Saxons now called England. Word had come north on the lips of merchants and trading ships that the kingdom was riven, the King had usurped the throne and his earls were divided into factions. It was ripe for attack.
‘Will we fight today?’ asked Ulfketil.
‘We will if we can.’
‘We fight today,’ Ulfketil bellowed, and the crew cheered. Skarde nodded at their ferocity, their hunger to fight and prove their valour to the Gods. Odin wanted them to fight, Thor and Týr welcomed the blood and sacrifice Skarde and his men would offer up to their glory.
‘Our Lord, Olaf Tryggvason, wants us to cut a swathe of war and fear across Saxon lands,’ Skarde shouted to his men. ‘Our people, my own kin, were butchered by the Saxons. Let them feel our fury now, let them feel the wrath of the blood feud. Death to the Saxons.’ He pulled his axe free of the loop at his belt and held the blade aloft. His men cheered wildly and stomped their feet on the hull of his warship, the rhythmic pounding creating stirring war music. Skarde’s Lord, Olaf Tryggvason, was striking at the same time further along the Saxon coast. Olaf had brought twenty warships to attack the Saxons, filled with warriors baying for war and glory. Skarde could smell the famously rich earth of Saxon farmland as they closed in on the coastline. He could smell victory and vengeance on the wind.
Skarde closed his eyes and remembered his aunt and uncle’s faces. In the north, the Saxons had burned his own father’s sister and her husband alive following the defeat of Erik Bloodaxe and his loss of the Kingdom of York to the Saxons. So, Skarde was here now, filled with war-fury and ready to bring the blood feud to all Saxons. They would feel the pain and suffering of his own kin, and Skarde would burnish his reputation brightly with the blood and bones of Saxon warriors.
The coastline drew close, cliffs rising high, topped by the famed lush greenery of Saxon Britain. Skarde saw riders there, small and skittish on the hillside, and he grinned to himself.
‘Riders on the coast,’ he said to Ulfketil. ‘Let’s find the nearest beach and go ashore, hopefully they have brought their best warriors.’ The estuary and river beyond were the key to cutting deep into the countryside, but the chance to fight and kill Saxons on the beach was too good to refuse. His men had braved the dangers of the Whale Road to reach these shores, and he saw a chance to colour their blades with Saxon blood.
Ulfketil bellowed the orders to the crew, and the warship banked towards the lands of the Saxons. Skarde turned, and watched with satisfaction as his other warships made the same manoeuvre, making a sweep and following his lead like birds dipping and swooping as one flock in the sky. The wind whipped in the sails, and he felt the power of the sea beneath his hand again as his calloused palm gripped the tiller. It warmed his heart. The Gods were with him. Njorth gave him calm seas, and he knew Odin itched for blood and souls just as much as he did.
The golden sands of a Saxon beach rose into view beyond the rise and fall of the swell. Skarde raced towards it, watching the enemy horsemen pick their way down the hillside, spears and helmets glinting in the early spring sun. Ulfketil had the sail lowered, and the men withdrew the timber plugs from the holes along the ship's side, and made ready the long oars, removing them from their deck hooks and sliding them into place. Flatnose clashed his axe on a shield to beat time, and the oarsmen gave a clipped roar at each long pull. The ship surged towards the beach. Skarde could see men gathered there, a line of Saxon shields painted bright with the sigil of their Lord, making ready to meet Skarde and his warriors. His heart quickened in his chest. All his life, he had trained to fight. He was born to the blade and devoted to Odin All-Father. His chance to avenge his slaughtered uncle and aunt and burnish his own reputation was so close he could smell it above the salt of the sea, and the acrid sweat of his men.
The warship crunched on to a shelf of shale at the edge of the Saxon beach. Ulfketil threw the anchor stone over the side, and its seal-hide rope snapped taut. Skarde put one hand on the sheer strake and leapt over the side and into the sea. The icy cold bit at his chest, and for a brief horrifying moment panic flooded his senses as his head dipped beneath the water. He wore a mail coat and heavy war gear; if the water were deeper than head height he would drown before he could strike a blow in anger. But he pushed with his feet and his head burst through the surface. Skarde roared his defiance at the Saxon sea. The men aboard his ship cheered, and Ulfketil tossed Skarde his shield.
Skarde pumped his legs hard to push through the sea’s resistance as quickly as possible, the weight of his soaked clothes, armour and weapons cumbersome. He stumbled as the tide tried to drag him back into its clawing embrace. He emerged from the water amidst a line of his men – vicious, hungry killers all – and he laughed at the timid Saxons. They should have killed him as he came stumbling from the water, but they waited on the beach behind a line of shields. Even their horsemen had dismounted to join the shield wall instead of riding Skarde and his men down before they could reach it. The Saxons hesitated, and they were afraid, and now they would die.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
With thanks and gratitude to Caroline, Ross, and the fantastic team at Boldwood Books.
GLOSSARY
Annwn – Celtic underworld.
Bard – Professional storyteller in Celtic culture.
Bucellari – Mercenary war bands, the name comes from Roman escort troops.
Caer Ligualid – Roman city in what is now Carlisle, Cumbria.
Cameliard – Brythonic kingdom in Brittany.
Druid – High-ranking priest or shaman in Celtic culture.
Excalibur – Arthur’s legendary sword.
Fasces – Roman symbol of power, an axe wrapped in rods, used to symbolise a Roman magistrate’s civil and military power.
Fetch – Ancient word to describe a ghost or apparition.
