Wulfhere couldn’t stand it any
longer. His mind roared: why do they not give the order? They must
either charge forward to meet the onslaught, or retreat. He heard neither
command. His heels gently nudged his horse’s flanks and Hwitegaast dutifully
cantered over to the Norman section behind the lines.
He called
over to Ralph as he neared their position. “My Lord, we must attack or retreat!
We are like sitting ducks! If we stand here any longer we will be cut down. Give
the order!” Wulfhere pleaded. He smelt the fear and saw the confusion on the
Earl’s sweating quivering features. My God, the man’s a coward! Wulfhere
thought in dismay.
Ralph’s
companions joined him and Wulfhere noted the anxiety in their faces.
“If we are
going to fight, you must give the order to charge, Lord,” Fitzscrob urged and
Malet echoed him.
Wulfhere
saw to his relief that Ralph nodded, albeit without urgency, as if the fear had
dulled his senses. He pulled on Hwitegaast’s reins and he returned to his
position.
“Foreweard
hilderæs! Forward charge!” Wulfhere yelled and his unit sped forth, their
voices raised loudly in a thundering war cry as they spurred their horses into
a gallop. The earth pounded beneath their beasts’ hooves as they dug their stirrups
into the horses’ flanks to make them go faster. The Welsh bowmen sent over a
volley of arrows and the commands of the Norse leaders followed as their men
obeyed with precise discipline, to halt and gather to form a great shieldwall,
knowing that the horses would baulk at their man-made blockade.
About a
hundred bowmen from the enemy front ranks fired their arrows. Wulfhere was
disheartened as some of his fellow soldiers were felled by them, leaving the
horses to scatter riderless in confused panic. Wulfhere expected Ralph’s men to
be engaging the bowmen in the centre, mowing them down with their javelins and
sword strikes, but where the hell were they? Suddenly something did not feel
right.
“Wulfhere!”
He heard Esegar’s anguished voice calling him. “The Earl and his huscarles are
leaving the field, Lord!”
Wulfhere
swivelled and turned his head to his right. He reeled with shock and disbelief
as Ralph and Malet were running from the field, the Normans and French in tow
like fleeing vermin. The right flank, too, had gone and he saw that Gruffydd’s
rearguard was charging after the soldiers in flight.
“What are
they doing, sir?” Esegar asked, baffled.
Wulfhere’s
voice was pitched at an angry growl. “Saving their fucking Norman
skins...leaving the rest of us to the wolves to die like sheep!”
Even
before a single spear was thrown, the craven Normans had fled, leaving the
Earl’s ‘great’ army of mounted men at the mercy of the crushing enemy.
Wulfhere
looked across the mud-churned field and gasped as the fleeing Englisc were
struck down by javelins and arrows. The horses did not escape the vicious
attack either. Their distressed whinnies fused with the howling of wounded men
so that the noise became like the sound of hell on earth. In the pandemonium,
the horses took flight in all directions, running into each other and throwing
off their riders. The warriors were cut to ribbons as they lay helplessly on
the ground. Whooping filled the air as the Wéalas leapt upon them with great
savagery, slitting their throats and hacking at them in a frenzy of bloodlust.
All this happened
within seconds but, as Wulfhere plundered his mind for what to do next, it
seemed to him that an age had gone by. He fought with his instincts to run and
save his skin like Ralph and, twisting his head back round, he sees that the
men of his left flank have no choice but to fight as the Norse break their
ranks and charge into the horsemen, using their deadly spears and great axes to
hack at them with terrible ferocity. Wulfhere’s eyes captured some of his army
fleeing the battle. His heightened sense of fear set off the mechanism needed for
survival: adrenalin. The overwhelming rush of blood and energy stormed through
to his head. He wanted to run also, but his pride and anger at this debacle that
Ralph had created would not allow it. Cowardice may have won the day for Ralph
but, for Wulfhere, death in battle was preferable. He would sooner die than
sully his name with the infamy of leaving his men to perish without him. His
mind inadvertently took him to Dunsinane and the memory ignited his anger as he
visualised the terrible carnage of that battle.
Clearing
his throat, he spat phlegm from a dry mouth before shouting, “Stand your
ground! Do not flee! Are we cowards like the bastards who have left us to die? Retreat
back unto me!”
He rode amongst the chaos,
roaring and screaming until his throat was hoarse. He derided those who tried
to leave for being cowardly, calling them scum, worse than the droppings
expelled from a dog’s arse! Men began to heed his call to rally. They were
disengaging from the mêlée to regroup the lines, swinging their horses’ heads
round and galloping back to gather around him.
The
survivors of the left cavalry flank were organised once more, thanks to Wulfhere.
Those whose mounts had been killed from under them ran back on foot, or took
charge of the horses that had lost their riders. He searched for Esegar
briefly, thought he saw him somewhere and was relieved. He heard the bellowing
of the Norse infantry as they too were regrouping their lines and the ground
shook with the thundering of Gruffydd and Alfgar’s troops as they pursued the
fleeing Englisc into the distance. Wulfhere felt as if he was under water and
gazed up at the ravens circling in the sky above them, already waiting to swoop
on the dead carcasses. Not yet, you dark devils, I am not ready for you yet!
Wulfhere
stared at the faces of the snarling enemy. They were banging their weapons
against their shields, chanting and calling out insults to them. Some of them
were emulating horses by pretending to gallop up and down the field,
accompanying their inane stupidity with neighing and whinnying. Their
companions found this highly amusing. Wulfhere did not. They were heavily
outnumbered and he was appalled. If he had to give his carcass up to the scavengers
of the battlefield, he would die like a true warrior, valiantly, as they did in
the old days.
He gave
the order to charge; he knew his men were looking to him for his leadership. It
filled him with both fear and excitement, but there was no time to think on
that now as he charged ahead of his lines into the cordon of Norsemen who ran
head-on into them like mad braying fools, some of whom wear the bearskins of
the infamous Berserkers.
His sword
arm swept down at the contorted faces of the Wykinga warriors, but for every
man he felled, another took their place. He cut and slashed at them with
animal-like ferocity, his kite-shaped shield in his other grasp battered at any
would-be assassins on his left side. A warrior on the right of him took a blow
from him across his neck and shoulder and the man’s blood splattered Wulfhere across
his face. He tasted the iron in it as it seeped into his mouth. The man
staggered and clasped a hand over the wound as thick blood poured through his
fingers. Wulfhere lost him as Hwitegaast lunged sideways with the impact.
Another snarling Wykinga came at him with a great axe. Wulfhere saw him aim for
Hwitegaast’s neck. Anger and panic filled his very being. No, I am not going
to let you kill my horse! his mind screamed. He shortened the reins, pulled
them and Hwitegaast reared away from the axe’s deadly blade. He swung his sword
arm downwards to smash into his assailant as he sidled his mount. The impact
felled the axeman instantly and the man lost his grip on the handle of his
weapon, rendering him useless for another assault.
Wulfhere
sensed the chaos around him as the men of the mounted unit courageously fend
off Alfgar’s crazed mercenaries. Some of the enemy were trampled under hooves, as
they tried to unhorse the Englisc, slipping in the mire of blood and entrails
that lay on the ground. His vision is filled with unlucky riders, whose horses
succumb to the vicious blades of the Norse axes. Their weapons slice into the
necks of the horses, almost decapitating them, sending out great jets of
scarlet. Their masters were also cut down and the stench of blood and bodily
fluids swirled in Wulfhere’s nostrils.
Men were roaring or screaming and the clash of steel rang in his ears.
His own dread was glowing hot through his veins, spurring him on with the
determination that he would not die without a good fight.
A great
collective cry of voices burst through the chaos as about one hundred or so
foot soldiers, men of the local fyrd, ran into the havoc, snarling like angry
wolves and yelling a rallying call, “Hereford! Hereford!”
Wulfhere’s
heart leapt with hope, even though he knew they are still vastly outnumbered. Spotting
the exposed flesh of a man occupied in a fight with one of the Englisc foot soldiers,
he swung his faithful sword, Hildbana. Wulfhere grunted with the impact,
satisfied that it had met its mark as his blade sank into the man’s exposed
neck. His victim’s head bent forward and the wound at the top of his spine
gaped, showing the white of a broken vertebrae. Blood pumped slowly out onto
his mail as he fell to his knees. Dropping his sword, his hands went to the
back of his neck. Wulfhere manoeuvred his mount closer to the fallen man so
that he can strike him once more. Hildbana thundered down, but his aim
was not good and he caught the man’s helmet, thrusting him forward to the
ground. Another warrior rode over him unintentionally, the animal’s hooves
stamping on head and limbs indiscriminately. There was no more Wulfhere could
do to him and he turned to his right just as an axe bit deeply into the horse
next to him. The beautiful creature sank onto its front, blood spurting out
from the wound and over Wulfhere so that he was covered in a fountain of
scarlet droplets. Wulfhere instantly recognised the stallion that he had sold
to Ralph and a lump formed in his throat. Its rider screamed and hit the ground
as the horse collapsed. The unfortunate rider was then met with a spear to his
back, skewering him like a spitted wild boar. Hwitegaast reared and whinnied, a
haunting eerie sound as if he recognised the offspring that he had brought
forth from his own loins.
As
Wulfhere struggled to steady his distressed mount, he wondered if there was any
point in carrying on. Men were dying around him. He felt like a dead man
already. His eyes flashed round him. Horses were being cut from beneath their
riders and he was angry. Men dying was one thing but, Christ on the Cross, not
the horses...
He slid
from Hwitegaast and smacked his rump hard until his bewildered mount took off,
but not before giving his master a questioning look as if Wulfhere was
abandoning him. A blow barged into Wulfhere’s shoulder. Thankfully his shield
took the brunt of it. He reeled round, swinging his shield from his back and
lifted his sword to defend himself, hardly noticing as his assailant’s sword
slashed into his leg, close to where previously he had been hit by an arrow.
The man
before him was, like him, drenched in blood. Wulfhere raised his shield to parry
the sword blow that descended upon him. He was filled with a terrible fury and
retaliated with his sword, swinging it upwards and catching the man’s own
shield with such a force it knocked him back a few paces. His rage gathered
momentum and Wulfhere hacked at the man before he could recover, his sword
blows bashing his shield aside, creating an opening for him to deliver a slash across
the man’s gut, knocking the Norseman off his feet. He pinned him with his foot
and thrust his sword tip into the man’s throat as the enemy lay prone in the
morass of mud and guts beneath him. The man’s eyes stared up at him, glasslike
and questioning as red spittle frothed from his mouth and trickled into his
beard. Wulfhere wasted no time, sensing danger to his rear, he whirled around
to ward off a blow from some other warrior. Suddenly he was surrounded and had
to fight them off like a madman. His fury continued to enrage him and he
battled on, hardly realising he was injured until he began to weaken. Legs
buckling underneath him, he dropped into the bloody slough and covered himself
with his shield, waiting for the end. He knew his life was over.
